


Saganesque

by Cosmic_Biscuit



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drama, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Multi, Politics, Polyamory, Romantic Friendship, War, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2018-11-13 01:57:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 20,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11174619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmic_Biscuit/pseuds/Cosmic_Biscuit
Summary: Different choices, different results. An alternate timeline where Altea's Queen lived longer and new bonds were formed within the royal family. Chapters written by request on tumblr.





	1. Dinner Theatre

“Why did we agree to hosting this again?” Alfor asked under his breath as the three of them watched the Weymarnu practically use other guests as shields to keep the Ramka away from them. 

“Building up interplanetary good will after the policies of illustrious ancestors,” Illyere reminded him softly. “Coran, the buffets?”

“South one stocked with nineteen different kinds of meat dishes, north one entirely vegetarian. I don’t know why the Ramka are still hassling them.”

“Old habits are hard to break,” Alfor sighed. “Our own nobles aren’t exactly being friendly. See if you can make the Ramka behave, we’ll try and ease the Weymarnu’s fears.”

“Yes, sire.”

His royals swept down into the crowd to mingle, and Coran did the same, albeit in an entirely different manner. Shadowing up to each of the maids and stewards serving the snacks and drinks, he pointed the ones carrying meat treats towards the more aggressive guests and the ones with drinks away. 

So far, so good.

“Need any guard adjustments?” Turimi asked, appearing at his side.

Coran looked out over the crowd, and found the king and queen chatting with a pair of Waymarnu nobles, who seemed to finally be relaxing a little. “Not yet, I don’t think, but keep an eye on things. And tell the kitchens to make sure the meat buffet stays at full capacity.”

“Aye,” she murmured, and vanished back into the sweep of bodies.

A huge hand clapped down on his back, nearly flattening him, and Coran choked as the wind was knocked out of him.

“Fine party, boya,” a huge male Ramka rumbled, all tusks and fangs in his grin. “Compliments to the chefs and your masters.”

“I’ll let them know,” Coran wheezed weakly. When the stranger meandered off, however, rubbed his shoulder in pain.

A soft giggle nearby. “That one won’t cause you any trouble,” Qirika said as she slipped from the crowd, munching on some spiced duikelle meat pieces on a stick. 

“Glories, I hope not. Are you sure, though?” 

“This is the first time he’s left the buffet all night instead of watching prey. He’s had his fill, I can tell.”

“Well, at least that’s one. Is Hebe here, too?”

“Naturally.”

“Can you two help me keep an eye on the eating habits of the rest, then?”

“Of course.” She handed him a chaika-berry cream puff that she'd seemingly produced from nowhere, then disappeared as quickly as Turimi had.

Sighing, he took a bite and settled in to watch the crowd again.


	2. The Opening Steps

They tumbled through a knot of vines and landed in a heap, barely avoiding being shot by a matter of inches. “This was _not_ the way I’d planned on finishing the afternoon meetings,” Alfor grumbled as they ducked behind one of the mangrove trees to return fire.

“I doubt anyone had planned for pirates to crash the table quite so literally, sire,” Coran said with grim satisfaction when one blast succeeded in nailing a rather nasty-looking squid creature with a plasma sword right in the eye. 

“We have to find where Illyere went.”

“I think the delegation from Siryllia  took her with them, so she should be safe. Not that I don’t agree.” He did _not_ like one of his charges being out of sight in a melee like this. Activating his shield, he ducked down behind it while glancing around to find some method of escape.

Useless… too open… went right back into the pirates… aha!

“Alfor!” Once the king’s attention was on him, he signaled to the pads of fungus growing out of the sides of the trees. From the looks of it, the path would carry them high enough that they’d be out of reach of the shoddy blasters the pirates were carrying, which would give them the fire fight advantage. 

And apparently Alfor agreed, because he nodded and immediately began climbing.

Left, right, Hop west, down, they climbed easily and managed to mostly not be noticed, until-

“Agh!” 

The shot went through the edge of the fungus pad and caught Alfor in the leg with enough force that he lost his balance. Fighting down panic, Coran grabbed him by the arm before he could tumble off into thin air and quickly swung him up into his arms, making the last jump to safety before the adrenaline could wear off and let him think about what he was doing.

“Thanks, old man, I thought-”

A distinctly amused whistle cut through whatever Alfor was going to say, and they turned their heads to find Illyere leaning over a glass-encased balcony a few feet away, the entire Siryllian delegation surrounding her.

At the grin she wore, Coran felt a blazing rush of heat to his face before, still holding Alfor, everything went black.

\---

Alfor neatly stole the ribbon out of his wife’s hand before she could get started braiding up her hair for bed and sat down behind her, brushing a kiss against her shoulder as he did so. “After your trying day, a little indulgence would do you good, my love,” he said, beginning to separate tresses.

Illyere snorted at him. “You just want excuses to play with my hair,” she said, but let him have his fun.

“It would seem I’m not the only one.”

She looked up from lacing the front of her nightgown to find he was smiling placidly. A little _too_ placidly. “Oh? Catching glances again are we? What did you notice this time?”

“He was very interested when they were fixing your hair for the meetings with the delegation from the Mipici Hive. And I doubt it had anything to do with the kemii crystals they used for the style.”

Illyere tsked. “No worse I suppose than his starstruck expression when you congratulated him for making top marks at that shooting exhibition the Vragan Consulate demanded on your last visit,” she said, tying off the last lace. “We really should just say something to him. He’s going to give himself a double heart attack trying to hide it at this rate.”

“Especially since he’s utterly terrible at it?’ Alfor asked with a wry eyebrow raise.

“You said it, not me.”

“You are right, though,” he conceded as he tied the ribbon around her braid. “One of us is going to have to make the first move. Any ideas?”

“Not yet. But just give me a few days.”


	3. Panic

His heart pounded in his throat and he tasted bile in his mouth when he saw the condition the blast shelter was in. This was supposed to be a civilian safe zone. The Maryukhen had agreed to the terms of combat! Over the comm, he could hear panicked voices calling for medics and extraction teams and heavy lifting equipment, but his brain barely processed the words.

_Illyere-!_

Panic overtook anger and he took his single-pilot down to land, barely getting it braked to a halt before he launched open the canopy and threw himself over the side to hit the ground running. “Where is she?!”

His approach was met with surprise by soldiers and civilians alike before someone he barely recognized as Field Medic Shujia under all the dust waved to him frantically. “North side, sir! She and Coran were helping the civilian medics!”

The north side was nothing but a pile of rubble. 

The sick feeling roiled in his gut as he turned sharply and ran faster, pushing his way between the stunned and injured and crews of aid. 

His heart sank when he saw a pair of soldiers pulling her out from under a pair of collapsed columns. Then he saw she was still conscious and trying to fight her way to standing, and relief nearly took the breath from his lungs. “Illyere!”

Glowing eyes peered up at him through a dusty, tangled curtain of hair as his queen finally gave in to the soldiers’ directions to sit. “Alfor?”

Barely even noticing all the rubble he had to cross to get to her, Alfor scooped her into a hug and buried his face into her hair. “Hells. When Shujia told me you and Coran were in the worst of it-”

Illyere laughed weakly and squeezed him back, even as a combat medic was fussing at him to let her go and at her to lie down and be checked. “I thought we were as good as dead too, I admit it. If he hadn’t pulled me away from the inner windows, we’d be in pieces.” 

Alfor pulled back and kissed her forehead and both cheeks before he finally let the medic take over. “Is-?”

She waved over to where Coran was similarly attempting to escape being checked. “I’ll give him a healing scan later,” she said, still holding his hand tight. “Right now, I am just…”

“Yeah,” he agreed. The fear adrenaline beginning to fade, he could feel the exhaustion creeping in as well. But that wasn’t important. Important was the contact between their hands and knowing she was still whole and breathing. That was all that mattered.


	4. A Mistake Unmade

The scent of quulin spice twitched his nose, and he sleepily cracked one eye open. He didn’t remember taking any spice cookies to bed… And where had all this purple clouding his vision come from?

The purple moved, soft fluffy masses that floated over his face as something beside him shifted, and then he was suddenly wide awake as he was _very_ aware that the _something_ was a _body_ cuddling closer. 

This.

This was _not_ his room.

His breath quickening in almost panic, he started to sit up, only to find himself restrained by a heavy arm slung over his chest.

A very dark-skinned arm.

Dark skin from one side. Male. Purple hair and small body from the other. Female.

_“Oh, Glories. What have I done?”_

Head spinning, he swallowed, trying to make his heart stop racing, then finally noticed something that made the panic subside just a little.

He was still -at least somewhat- dressed.

Oh. Oh, thank the stars. At least he hadn’t just drunkenly debauched himself with the only two he happened to have been pining over for the better part of two years. But then, what _had_ -

“Calm down and go back to sleep,” Illyere murmured drowsily, nuzzling into his neck in a way that was…  _very_ nice, and Coran realized the spice smell was coming from her hair.

“Hmm, too early to be up,” Alfor agreed in a quite pleasant low rumble that he’d never heard before, tightening his embrace.

Coran swallowed, the dizziness in his head calming at the realization that this, whatever it was… it hadn’t just been him. 

They wanted him here.

Letting out a soft, slow breath, the tension in his body seemed to melt at that realization, and he snuggled into them both as the panicked drumbeat of his heart relaxed and he closed his eyes again.


	5. Setting the Stage

This was insanity. They were calling him in to fire him, surely. For what other reason could _both_ of them have requested his presence so soon after his… embarrassing indiscretion?

_You’re being an idiot,_ the rational part of his mind calmly reminded him. _They kept you there, remember?_

Oh, but they had been so very drunk then, too, he argued back, not caring how further proof of his madness it was that he was debating little voices in his head. Murukeeri Fire-Sweet Whiskey. Potent stuff. 

Enough to make you realize you’d made horrible mistakes while drinking i-

“Coran?”

He stiffened like he’d been shot, caught in the middle of his thirty-seventh -gritka fire, had he still been _counting?_ \- pace around the waiting area.

Illyere was laughing, muffling it behind her hand as she leaned out the door, and Alfor didn’t even try to hide the grin on his face as he held it open.

Oh, good, they were both totally relaxed about getting rid of him.

_Move, stupid,_ that little voice in his head nudged him again, and he awkwardly managed not to fall on his face as he bowed. “Er, your majesties.”

“Everything’s ready. Come in.”

Everything? 

Even more confused, he just stared at them numbly until he heard quiet giggling behind him and glanced over his shoulder to find Turimi peeking out of one of the secret doors. 

Then she _winked._

Oh?

_Oh._

His ears went flaming hot in embarrassment as he realized just _what_ she’d been so secretive about all day, and, if anything, that only made her laugh harder before the panel closed.

Okay, he was going to just combust and die in the flames of mortification. 

That was fine.

Ducking his head in a futile attempt to hide the fact that he was the color of autumn lunar lilies, he started to walk past the royals into the room-

-and slender fingers gently closed around his own.

“Breathe, ai’chatta.” So soft, so warm against his ear. Ai’chatta - _Beloved -_ here in this room that had previously only held two.

Stronger fingers brushed over the back of his neck, finding the tense, frightened spot.

“Nothing to be afraid of here.” Rich and deep against his other ear. A solid, steady presence to compliment the lighter touch of its mate.

He felt dizzy for a moment, and closed his eyes to steady himself, and then became aware of the smell of… food?

Dinner. They’d invited him to dinner.

He could have almost laughed. It was so simple, but so _not,_ because he’d eaten with them so often before, but not _here._ Not _like this._

The cold, hard knot of fear in his stomach twisted, untied, and vanished, and he took a deep breath, squeezing Illyere’s hand and cautiously taking hold of Alfor’s. “You… you two are _sure_?” he asked hesitantly. 

“Stay with us,” Alfor said softly, lifting his hand for a light kiss, and Illyere leaned into his shoulder.

Coran bit his lip, then nodded, the tension in his back finally relaxing. “I will.”

\---

He couldn't remember having ever eaten foods from Illyere's other homeworld before. At least not knowingly. But if they'd allow it, he could certainly get used to the heat of the spices. 

Deft fingers whipped a numichi-nut cracker from behind his ear in a teasing trick. "Payment for your wandering thoughts," Illyere said with a wicked grin, and though it was a blatant attempt to ease his nerves, he couldn't help a faint snort of laughter as he stole it from her hand and bit in.

"I'm thinking you need to learn new tricks," he said. "Though it  _was_ amusing when you did to Hurok with his own watch."

"Did you really?" asked Alfor after a sip of his drink. "I'm deeply sorry I missed that."

"I'm sure we can find it in the castle records," Coran said as he cut another bite out of his main dish. "He went a rather impressive shade of purple, he was so angry."

"It did distract him from his tirade at Jocetta's expense, however. Rather worth it."

And this... this... he wasn't sure what to call this gentle warmth that had settled between the three of them, so similar to their usual banter and teasing over a meal caught between appointments, yet so much, much  _more._

He could do  _this_ forever if they were serious about keeping him.

Dessert was a richly syrup-soaked cake he'd never had before, and a drink that smelled of warm, inviting spice. As much as he itched to try it, he refrained from tasting what was in the glass, not wanting to repeat his previous embarrassment. Not now.

Not when he was wondering... wondering...

He finished the last of his cake and pushed back his chair, getting up to thank his hosts as was only polite-

-and when hands -slender on one side and strong on the other- gently took hold of his, silent and questioning, his heart began racing for entirely different reasons than before.

"Will you stay?"

"Glories, yes."


	6. Protective

“-and that’s  _if_  the woman could be bothered to actually do any  _work_.”

Coran sighed and fought the urge to roll his eyes, but did shift the baby he was holding so he could rub them. Of _course_ it would be today, when he had offered to take Allura and give Illyere a few hours to herself, that one of the governors would come in with a bug up his nose and several grudges to air. 

The fates _did_ tend to conspire against him after all.

“Your lordship, I _assure_ you, Her Majesty has been quite  _diligently_ dealing with the problem-” The imperiously disbelieving sniff Governor Jorpek made in response made his metaphorical hackles raise, but his attention was caught by an insistent squirm in his arms. “-eh? Allura?”

“Hmn!” He’d forgotten she was awake, and the infant princess had wiggled from her sleeping position into a sit-up, and was reaching out for the governor, who blinked at her in surprise.  _“Hnn!”_

Coran was no less caught off guard. Allura never reached for  _anyone_ unless she liked them, and why she would like that pompous-

“ _Augh, get her off!”_

Tiny fingers had latched into the old man’s beard with a claw-like grip, and the small bundle was nearly ripped out of Coran’s arms when Jorpek reeled back with a howl of pain. Momentarily stunned, Coran quickly recovered and tried to pry her loose, only to find that it was like trying to wrench open an Orichian-made latch-vice, and in the end, Allura came away with a fistful of hair.

“Well!” the governor snapped, gaze blazing as he pulled up a holo-mirror to check the damage. “It’s clear the little monster takes after her demon of a mother!”

“Oh, for-” 

He didn’t get the chance to finish his rebuke as he man swept out of the room. Good riddance. They’d have to handle his kullashit later, but for now, Coran didn’t want the headache. 

There was the handful of hair Allura was waving around like a battle trophy to be dealt with.

—

“-and she’s never done anything like this before. Not to  _your_ face, certainly.”

Alfor bounced their daughter in his arms, and she giggled up at him, wrinkling her nose happily. “Maybe there was something in particular about him she didn’t like. His voice?”

“Hm… well…” Coran scratched his head in thought, then his eyes lit up. “Ah! Allura,” he said, and the infant turned her head to look at him. “Your mama’s ugly.”

He quickly ducked as she puffed up her cheeks in a scrunched up scowl and chubby fingers immediately made a grab for his hair.

Alfor cracked up in a bark of laughter. “Hah! It seems Miss Illyere’s picked herself up a new guard! Our nobility will have to be more clever about their insults from now on.”

“Indeed,” Coran said with a grin, then patted Allura's cheek. “I didn’t mean it, sweetbug,” he said, leaning in to kiss her on the forehead. “Your mama’s the prettiest flower in the garden.”

“Hnn!” Allura continued to scowl up at him, as if threatening him that he better mean _that_ , and he and Alfor both laughed all the harder.


	7. Reflexes

Even with their reflexes, the first shot still took some of Illyere’s hair and, on instinct, he shoved her and baby Allura into their guest room before hammering the lock command on the door. 

A humming energy dagger buried itself into the wall next to his head, and Coran gritted his teeth, activating his shield and turning to intercept the next. 

One, two, three, four, fi- oh, and the ones with the sniper rifles. That was an awful lot of bodies for one assassination. Not good. 

He barely had time to send a signal to their hosts to send guards  _now_ before more blaster shots splattered against his shield and the knife-wielder lunged in again, followed by two of his compatriots. 

Ranged and melee at the same time. He was suddenly  _very_ grateful for Zarkon’s training back in their warband days, switching his shield to a smaller, sharp-edged form that he could better use in combat and drawing his pistol. 

Two shots, one slash, one enemy down. Duck, reflect more blaster fire. Damn, if he could just take out the two laying down cover- there, one gone. Blazing pain arced across his back and he hissed, turning to shoot the one responsible in the face and a third behind them. 

The pain was making it hard to use his right arm.

But he couldn't stop, he couldn't-

Panic bloomed when the guest room door opened, then he yelped in surprise when hands reached out and yanked him in before it closed behind him.

In the darkness, he heard Allura whimpering, but before he could respond, a bright pink glow erupted and the agony in his back was replaced by sweet relief. “Hells,” he groaned, starting to push himself up, but a hand on his shoulder easily kept him in place now that his adrenaline was fading.

“Don’t you move, or I’ll punch you,” Illyere snapped under the noise of more blaster fire from outside as the guards finally arrived. “What were you _thinking_ , staying out there?”

Allura whined, apparently in agreement with her mother’s chastizement.

“Had to neutralize the threat,” Coran said softly, beginning to feel a little lightheaded from the comfort of the healing power knitting muscle and skin back together. “Things may have changed between us all personally, but I’m still your guard.”

Illyere sighed. Fingers gently clasped his, and he squeezed in return. “Fine. But next time, you can protect us just as well from _behind_ the door. No more heroics.”

“I can’t promise that. But I’ll try to remember.”

“Good enough.”


	8. Rituals

“Are you sure about this?”

“Coran, we’ve been over it three times,” Illyere said, trying stubbornly to get the errant strand of hair to stay put, but it continued to loosen into his eyes. “I _want_ you two to have this. I know what hopeless romantics you both are, and if anything in our relationship is going to be traditional at all, you both _deserve_ to have this.”

“I just… I just feel like I’m _stealing_ something since you two didn’t get to-”

“Don’t you dare, Red,” she chided, kissing him on the nose. “This is a _gift. Accept_ it.”

Coran finally deflated, a fond smile crossing his mouth. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You can take me to the ruins when we’re stuck visiting Clamurili next moon,” Illyere teased. “Now get going, or you’ll miss him.”

Coran squeezed her tightly, then pulled back and bowed before rushing out of the bedroom.

—

He didn’t miss the faint giggles in the hallways around him as he traversed the halls, and grinned back at the maids fluttering their fingers from the shadows. Even if the nobles were being kept in the dark so far, his relationship with the royal couple was an open secret among himself and the rest of the servants in the castle, and it was reassuring to know they had his back in this.

“Tell us aaaallll about it,” Turimi teased.

“Now, ladies, you know it’s not polite to kiss and tell,” Coran replied mock-officiously, and the giggles increased as he headed for the Rotunda of Flowers.

The Rotunda of Flowers was a beautiful sight at night, populated by the rarest colors of Altean lunar water flowers. The mere sight of their points of light glittering off the water of the pond mad Coran’s breath catch in his throat as he walked out on one of the many bridge connected to the center.

Where Alfor was waiting on him with a smile.

“You made it. I was beginning to wonder.”

“Wouldn’t miss this for all the quallmau on Paena,” Coran said, his voice sounding weak to himself. This… this was actually going to happen, he realized as Alfor held out a hand. 

He was going to _bond._

The knife with its little channel waited deceptively innocently on the podium next to a basin of water and a freshly cut lunar flower. “Are you ready?”

Coran nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Alfor held out his hand, palm up. “Coran, House of Virak, would you honor me with your companionship?” he asked, before making a cut with the knife, just enough to bleed.

Coran took a deep breath, then touched his fingertips to Alfor’s. “Alfor, House of Lothal, I accept,” he said, cutting his own palm, before they pressed their hands together.

The blood ran into the channel of the blade, and Alfor tipped it so that it dripped onto the flower. Then, delicately, he laid it in the water.

Coran sucked in a breath as the flowers around them flared brilliantly, first in the blue of Alfor’s markings, then the green of his own, before returning to their own motley hues. 

And that… that… He bit his lip, feeling his eyes sting. And he started to laugh. An arm caught him around the waist, steadying him, and he buried his face in Alfor’s shoulder, still laughing.

No matter _what_ the nobles did now, he was theirs, and _they_ were his.


	9. The Pains of the Job

He had protested that he was not nearly so infirm as to be bedridden. 

Illyere had merely clucked her tongue in _that_ way that brooked no argument, and left him with a steaming bowl of her Amai’s stew, and who could say no to that?

He had protested that he was entirely capable of continuing his duties, sickness or no.

Alfor had simply smiled that smile that said ‘I can make this a living nightmare for you’ and stolen every datapad that was connected to the castle’s functioning systems.

“You as well, Allura?” he asked his warden in mock-despair, and the little princess giggled from her crib, waving Vulluna at him. Once he’d been determined not to be contagious, even she had been more than delighted to participate in making sure he’d stayed abed, tattling on him with a loud wail if he tried to go anywhere but the bathroom.

“It’s only because you’re loved, ai’chatta,” Illyere said, sweeping his hair out of his face with her claws to kiss him on the forehead before setting down his lunch tray. “You know you won’t recover as fast if you don’t rest.”

“If it makes you feel better, Prichel found one of these gaming pads out in the markets today,” Alfor added, handing it over. “She figured it might help your boredom.”

“Hmf. Mindless nonsense,” Coran grouched, but he switched it on anyway watching an orb-shaped little creature bounce around the screen for him to catch and drop down a puzzle filled with food. “Are there at least a selection of games?”

“Should be. And look on the bright side. Better this than meeting with the head of the Morrikkhan Trade Union.”

Coran felt his lip curl. “No, thank you. I think I’d rather stay with my blobby friend here.”

Alfor chuckled and Illyere covered her mouth to hide a smile. “That’s the spirit. Take care, old man.”

Illyere went to the crib and bent down to kiss Allura on the cheek. “Keep watch, little guard.”

Allura merely giggled more.

It was going to be a very long week.

\---

“I think I actually hate you right now,” he heard Alfor groan, and Coran had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing, turning around quickly to hide his smile.

He couldn’t help it. The sight of Illyere holding her much taller husband in an iron grip to keep him from sliding helplessly across the floor as he had twice already would drive much hardier men to chortles.

“Of course you do, darling,” she said with a placid smile, claws digging into his arms a little to keep him steady as a medic pressed another hypospray to his neck.

“No, I really do. You’ve _never_ gotten this?”

“Nope. My sisters have not been so lucky, but my brother and I take more after our father. We get the Hamellian Flu instead.”

“What does that do?” Coran asked with interest as he leaned against the nearest table, having recovered his composure.

“Shedding like a snake with every sneeze.”

“Eugh.”

“Mmhmm.”

Another medical spray, another flinch, and Alfor hissed. “Are we nearly _done_?”

“Three more to go, sire,” the medic replied dispassionately.

Coran couldn’t help a small grin. “Should I go ahead and call the cleanup crew, then?”

The queen’s laughter was worth the nearly murderous glare Alfor shot him.

 ---

“You overdid it this time, Illy.”

“You’re one to talk, Red.”

His back still ached fiercely, and he knew there was always going to be a catch below his ribs whenever he had to stretch his left arm. But he wasn’t _dead,_ and the dull, struggling flicker in his Queen’s -his ai’kere’s- eyes that normally glowed so bright pained him. 

Rolling up on his side a little, Coran took hold of her hand and brushed a kiss against trembling fingers. “Thank you,” he murmured, voice far weaker than he would have liked.

She managed a tired smile and leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. “Trading the favor as always.”

The door to the ship’s infirmary swished open, and both of them pulled away, only to relax when a very worried Alfor swept in. 

“Hells, are you two _alright?_ They told me the Miktanku Delegation’s ship had been attacked-”

“I’m afraid we ended up in the middle of their separatist revolution,” Illyere said, giving Coran’s hand a squeeze. “But it seems our Advisor’s protective instincts are as sharp as ever.”

Alfor blew out a sharp breath, then pulled a chair over next to his wife’s, reaching out to close a hand over their joined ones. “You have to quit scaring us like this, old man.”

“Well, if you two would quit blithely traipsing into political minefields, my life would be a whole lot easier,” Coran drawled, grinning tiredly.

“Oh, but then the tea parties would be so boring,” Illyere teased as she leaned on her husband. “No gossip at all.”

“And we can’t have that.”

And none of them had let go by the time he and Illyere had quietly let exhaustion tug them off to sleep.

 


	10. What's In A Name

The nurses and tutors said many times that she was a precocious child, something she struggled to learn meant ‘bright before the right time’. Which sounded weird. What was the ‘right’ time, anyway? How did she know when it came? And all she did was study and watch and listen the way Mama and Papa and Uncle Coran told her to, it didn’t seem like a big deal.

Uncle Coran… that didn’t seem right either. Didn’t feel right. He wasn’t Mama or Papa’s brother. 

He wasn’t family. 

Or he _was._

She thought he was. 

He _felt_ like he was. 

What was he?

Going with Mama to meet Amai was fun. So much new family to see! So many presents! And as always, she watched and listened and studied.

And slowly, little bit by little bit, she thought maybe the pieces began to fall into place as she saw the way families on Mama’s other world worked. 

“Amai, can you have lots of mamas and papas?” she asked one evening as her mother slept beside them near the fire.

“Of course you can, little pip, why do you ask?”

“Nobody at home does.”

“Ah,” her great-grandmother murmured, stroking her hair. “Some might. But that’s just the way different cultures do different things.”

“Oh…” she rested her head on the old matron’s broad chest, sleep threatening to claim them. “What do you call them? Mama One and Mama Two?”

“No, dear,” came the soft chuckle.

And she dozed off with new names as faded whispers in her mind.

\---

She forgot about them in the days past, didn’t think about them as she returned to play and study and watching all the little _things_ that make her softly giggle -the little hand touches, the soft kisses when no one but her was there to see-

-until the word came to her entirely unbidden when she couldn’t attain her beloved Vulluna, put way too high by an unthinking nurse after being washed. “Aipa, I can’t reach!”

The room went silent, and she went still, the eyes of all three parents -yes, _three_ , because that was what they _all_ were, she knew, she _knew_ \- staring.

“Allura, where did you-” 

“From… from Amai,” she said, fisting her hands nervously in her dress as her eyes stung. What had she done wrong? Didn’t they know? They _had_ to know, they-

Her Mama scooped her up into a warm hug, and she buried her face into quulin-spiced waves of curly hair, reassured. Mama wouldn’t hug her like that if she was mad. “It’s okay, sweetbug,” Mama murmured, rubbing her back. “But you have to listen to us, alright? Never call Coran that around anyone else.”

Another hand touched her back and she raised her head, and her Papa and Aipa’s faces were comforting, but serious, and she knew her Mama meant it. “But why? That’s what he is.”

“There are people who don’t want him to be,” Her Papa said softly. “And they might try to hurt him if they knew he was. So we have to keep it secret, okay, dolly?”

She looked at Coran, at her second papa, her _Aipa,_  who was family and important and was never ever supposed to be hurt, and reached out with little fingers to squeeze the hand he offered. “Okay. But… You’re still Aipa here, right?”

And he smiled, eyes strangely watery, and squeezed back. “Always, sweetbug.”


	11. Little Prince

“Cap’n wants t’meet wit’chu.” 

That had been the extent of the message, delivered by a grouchy-looking Metripikan who seemed like he would have rather been anywhere else and quickly made his exit before Zarkon could ask what Urmekti wanted to see him about, or even  _where_ he was supposed to meet her. 

Ah, well. Finding her was usually easy enough. 

One only had to look for the biggest fight in the worst area of the city.

“Hello, dearest!” the pirate queen greeted him cheerfully as she flung a slaver through a window, missing his head by bare kupekks. “I see Nazzrek made it to you.”

“He did indeed, though he was quite short on words,” Zarkon said, catching the wrist of a Horttred that had lunged to stab him, snapping the idiot’s arm in one quick twist and throwing him aside. “He didn’t tell me why you were in port, for example.”

“Ah. That’s Nazzrek for you. Let me finish up here, and we’ll head back to the  _Coronal Storm_  so I can show you what’s what.”

That could take awhile. She seemed to have stirred up quite the Jiirek’s Nest of slavetraders. Well, since he was here, he supposed it couldn’t hurt to do some cleaning up.

—

“It’s an egg.”

“Always the astute one, my love,” Urmekti said with a toothy grin as she walked around him to the bundle on her bed to pick it up and settle it comfortably in her large, scarred arms.

Zarkon stared at it, then at her, comprehension slowly dawning. “It’s…  _our_ egg.”

“He’ll hatch today.”

“He? You already know?”

“Grouchy little thing,” Urmekti said. “A lot like you. Absolutely  _hates_ being pinned down.”

He snorted, then hesitantly reached out to put a hand against the leathery iridescent shell. It kicked back at him. “Have you picked a name?” he asked, then noticed the discomfort in her gaze.

“That’s… the thing. The parent the kit lives with should have that say, shouldn’t they?”

“You want to send him with me.”

“You can’t deny your home would be the better choice over my crew, as much as the bunch of kouyalas would love him.”

“Hmm… that’s true. You will be a part of his life though, won’t you?”

“C’mon, it’s me. Wild yaichaks couldn’t keep me away.”

Zarkon chuckled softly, then accepted the bundle when she offered it. “True, too. That will be enough, I suppose,” he said, bouncing the bundle in his arms. He froze, however, when the egg kicked hard enough that a crack appeared. “What-’

“Just relax. Keep him warm. He’ll make it out on his own,” Urmekti soothed, beginning to make a soft, rattling hum deep in her throat. The kit made responding chirps as a tiny clawed fist, then a yawning head fought free. “He’s got your mouth,” she cooed, as she toweled the squirming body off.

“ _Ow,_ and your punch,” Zarkon mock groused when a flailing fist caught him in the nose. 

“So, have you thought of a name?”

“Hm… Lotor. After my sister Luttren.”

“Pretty. What do you think, squirt?” she asked the kit, and was rewarded with a nip on the nose. 

The infant giggled up at Zarkon from under a wispy crown of his mother’s white hair, and he felt his heart catch.

_Oh._

Maybe he wouldn’t mind this one running around the Nation ships.

—

 _“Sleep, o, my darling dear_  
Adrift on the glittering sea  
The gentle waves rock you  
The soft breezes bring you  
This song of love  
Sent from me-”

“You’ve never sung for  _me_ before,” Zarkon said in mock hurt when he entered the room, mouth curving into a grin as he leaned back against the cabin door and folded his arms.

Urmekti managed to stick her tongue out at him without even raising her head, curled protectively in what could only be called a  _nest_ on her bed, a now-familiar bundle of blankets settled against her stomach. “I’ve checked, thoroughly and  _repeatedly,_ and you’re no cub,” she replied with a wicked smirk.

Zarkon snorted at the backhanded compliment and crouched to shed his boots before crossing to climb onto the mattress, careful not to wake their snoring son. “Claws already,” he marveled, delicately curling a finger around a tiny hand. A small swell of pride formed in his chest when little fingers immediately grabbed on in a tight grip. 

Oh, little Lotor was going to be a fierce one.

“And  _fangs,”_ Urmekti said as she leaned up on one elbow to card her own claws through silk-soft white hair. “He started trading in his milk teeth this week, which was quite a surprise.”

“Ouch,” Zarkon muttered, unable to help a wince. “I can only imagine.” He watched their son snuffle and murmur in his sleep for several long moments, then… “It’s almost time for him to go with me, then, isn’t it?”

“Having second thoughts?”

“No! I- no… Sorry. That sounded wrong.”  He sighed and scrached between his third and fourth carapace plate. “I’ve already had a room set up for him, and there are nurses and instructors practically jumping at the chance to meet him, I just- What if he hates me? What if he wants to come back to you?”

Urmekti gave him a single raised incredulous eyebrow. “I think if he hated you, he would have made his opinion pretty clear by now, considering he made a fairly damn good effort to take your lieutenant’s hand off on your last visit.  _Without_ his new teeth.” 

“…Fair,” Zarkon conceded. “But that still leaves the point that he might prefer living with you.”

“Mnn… hm. I guess… we’ll figure it out if it happens.” She scrunched up her muzzle in distaste. “Maybe I’ll set up a home base.”

He very quickly had to turn a laugh into a cough when she shot him a glare. “Now  _that,_ I’d like to see.”

“Oh, shut up and go to sleep before you wake the squirt.”


	12. Spy Work

She was still small when the whispers came in the night. “Sshh, little dolly,” the first soothed, rich and deep, and that was how she knew they were safe. Only her family and people they trusted called her dolly, and so when gentle arms lifted her out of her bed and wrapped her in a soft blanket that smelled like sands, she didn't scream or cry or kick. The second one went back and took Vulluna from her pillow and tucked the toy into her arms, and that’s how she knew to love them, and she rested her head on a broad shoulder without complaint.

The panel of the wall closed them in silently, but not before she saw the flashing blade come down where her head had been only a minute before, and a figure in the darkness hissed a word she knows she’s not allowed to say.

She has never been here before, inside the walls, through all these silent tunnels of dust and strange smells. The masked one that followed the one carrying her tugged the blanket higher so that she only smells sand, and it comforted her. 

“Are you alright, dolly?” her bearer asked, accent strange and lilting and sing-song.

“Sleepy…” she mumbled.

“You can sleep soon,” the second promised, soft and warm and female with the same singing accent. “All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.”

Winding and twisting, down a dizzying slide that makes her whimper and bury her face into the solid neck of her bearer, they came to a room filled with floating, flickering screens. And in the middle of it all-

“Mama? Aipa!”

Her carrier freed her from the blanket and let her down, and she ran to fling herself into her kneeling Mama’s arms. “Oh, bless Hulimere and all the Ancients,” her Mama breathed, nuzzling her cheek in greeting and holding her tight and not caring that she mistakenly called Coran by the wrong name, and Allura squeezed and squeezed and squeezed back.

“We rode down a big slide!”

“Aldran reported in on our way,” the female was saying to Coran, and she had never seen him look so, _so_ serious and grim. “They were still searching the upper corridors for her. Should we go back and handle it?”

“No. I’ve got Faimel and Beren on it. The fact that they knew the Queen wasn’t in the same area of the Castle as the Princess when they attacked isn’t good at all. When this is over, I want all of our intel avenues checked and double checked. This leak _has_ to be found, preferably before His Majesty returns and is in danger as well.”

“Aya, sir,” the masked pair bowed and vanished, just _vanished,_ and Allura was torn between staring at the shadows they left behind with awe or watching her Aipa in fascination as her Mama cradled her close. 

What is… all of this…?


	13. The Family Grows

 It was only four notes into the tune when Illyere looked up over her datapad with a glare that could have peeled paint. “You’re not cute.”

“Why, your majesty, I’m certain I have no idea what you mean,” Mirje replied innocently as she continued piecing together the guts of a miniature tank mock-up she was supposed to show the Kumoori Consul next moon. Above her, dangling from a mechanic’s sling, Joitree muffled a snicker, then went back to repair soldering on Red’s left hind leg.

Illyere growled under her breath, lowering her gaze back to the reports she was supposed to be studying. 

Another seven notes however, she was bristling. “Knock it off!” she snapped at the Orichian, who gave her a wounded look and silently pointed up at her partner in crime, who made a ‘who, me?’ gesture.

She absolutely was _not_ going to go bothering Coran to play music for her all evening, no matter _how_ nice it was to cuddle up after a terrible day. He was _busy,_ and so was _she._ Anything like that was going to have to _wait._

Now if only two certain _troublemakers_ would get that through their thick _skulls-_

They were humming insufferably in _harmony_ the third time, and Mirje had the gall to _laugh_ as she ducked the datapad when Illyere chucked it at her head.

 ---

The ladies were going to explode from trying to keep themselves from laughing, Alfor was sure. Joitree had her face buried in Illyere’s hair, and his wife was clinging to Mirje helplessly as the Orichian clamped her claws over her own muzzle in a desperate attempt to hold in noise. 

On his other side, Dracha was clearly biting his tongue, the tip of his tail twitching in agitation. 

Only Zarkon seemed capable of keeping a straight face, though a faint pinkening at the edges of his carapace plates was a dead giveaway that he was on the verge of cracking. 

And as for Alfor himself, he wasn’t faring much better than the rest, barely managing to conceal his expression behind years of diplomatic schooling.

“Sharassa, the way he was  _kneading_  his back _,”_ came a muffled wheeze from Joitree before the Yulnadae raised her head to wipe tears. “Did you _see_ the look on Klaka’s _face_?”

“Hmm, the… is he herding him somewhere? Hmm, it is very unusual,” Dracha agreed, tail tip lashing faster as he tried harder not to laugh.

“I thought he was going to hit the poor dear with that waitress’s serving tray when he got right up in Red’s ear,” Illyere managed in a strangled choke. “Zarkon, is that collar he’s holding an actual _thing_?”

The Black Paladin made an awkward cough and quickly turned his head, carapace turning even pinker, and that was when Mirje finally lost it, leaning against the balcony with a barking cackle.

Unfortunately, the sound caught the attention of their object of view, and when Coran looked up and caught them _all_ watching, he immediately turned a flamingly embarrassed shade of red that was visible almost from across the room and practically _skittered_ away from the suitor he’d already been politely trying to escape.

Alfor ducked his head to hide his laughter, then coughed to recover himself. “Better go calm him down before he tries to fling himself off a parapet or something similarly dramatic to recover his dignity. Coming, darling?”

“Naturally,” Illyere said with a grin, untangling herself from the laughing Paladins to accept his hand.

“Don’t forget the collar and leads!” Mirje called after them, prompting more cackling as the door to the balcony closed.

 


	14. Moments of Doubt/Sweetness

“Your mind’s been off in another star cluster for nearly a cycle and a half, ai’chatta. Kepchek for your thoughts?”

Alfor blinked, vision re-focusing on the datapad he hadn’t been reading at all, then he raised his head from where he’d been leaning on his hand to find Illyere was nearly finished with the glittery little stuffed rhiapip she’d started working on when their ship lifted off. “Hm?”

His wife chuckled, beginning to stitch an eye. “Dozing with your eyes open again?”

“Perhaps.” He closed the useless holoimage and shut down the screen, then reached over to interrupt her work by lacing their fingers together, making her look up.

“Is something bothering you?”

“No… just musing, I suppose,” he murmured, brushing his thumb against hers. “Have you ever wondered… if we would have even met had my family been different? Hm… say, military? Traders.”

Illyere laid the unfinished toy in her lap. “A few times,” she said, then grinned. “I dare say it would have been _easier_ , given how your parents breathed the fire of the Ancients down my neck over making a mockery of your title.”

Alfor bit back a snort. “There _is_ that. Though I can’t imagine _they_ would have been any different even if we had been a _common_ house,” he said dryly. “But… you think so?”

“Hmm… what do you think, Red?” Illyere asked as Coran approached to take his seat.

Coran raised a dubious eyebrow, glancing between both of them before he took his seat. “What do I think about _what_?” he asked warily, knowing from experience to be on his guard when pulled into a matter of opinion between the two royals. 

“Our ai’cheppe is having an existential crisis,” Illyere teased, ignoring Alfor’s indignant noise. “Would you have still fallen for him if he were a fellow lowly soldier?”

Coran made an exaggerated hum of thought, tilting his head back to stare at the transport’s ceiling. “Let me see, let me see. If he’d ended up like a good deal of my graduating class, probably not. But _our_ Alfor at one of my postings? I guess there are enough good qualities to be worth breaking a few protocol rules,” he said with an all too innocent expression as he gently shouldered a snickering Illyere. 

“Oh. my, yes,” Illyere added once she’d gotten herself under control. “I suppose _I_ could weather the scandal of marrying into a _common_ house for someone like our Alfor.”

“You two are the absolute worst,” Alfor muttered, the tips of his ears turning a brilliant red, but he was smiling as he released his wife’s hand to wrap an arm around her shoulders to finish the rest of the trip home.

\---

“Well, that’s a comfortable looking nest. Is there any room for me in it?”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Coran said as he pretended to scratch his chin thoughtfully from amidst the pile of pillows and blankets, Allura, and snoozing Illyere. “What do you think, sweetbug?”

“Password!” Allura demanded, waving one of her drawing holosticks imperiously.

“There you have it,” Coran said with a sage nod. “What’s the password?”

Alfor hid a grin and leaned down. “Oh, dear, that’s a hard one. Password…password… Could it be… _tickles?_ ” he asked, sweeping the little princess up in his arms as she shrieked with laughter.

Illyere yawned and stretched languidly like a koorana lion, then folded her arms on a pillow and rested her chin on them. “Someone’s in a good mood for having spent all week on a mission.”

“Glad to be home,” Alfor replied with a smile, neatly tucking a squealing Allura under his arm as he sat down amongst the pillows with his partners. “Missed the important things.”

“Ever the charmer,” Coran teased as Allura squirmed free and pounced on him with a triumphant growl.

“Yowch. You’ve been practicing with Mama, I see,” Alfor chided his daughter not at all seriously, warding off tiny shapeshifted claws.

“ _And_ Aipa!” Allura said with a proud grin. “I get to start electrobatons next week!”

Alfor scruffed her hair affectionately. “You’re going to be the terror of the castle in no time,” he said, and her grin widened as she snuggled happily into his arms, drawing sticks forgotten for the moment. 

“You say that as if she’s not already,” Illyere murmured from his left as she settled against his side, and Coran chuckled in agreement from his right. Allura stuck her tongue out at her mother, and Illyere returned the gesture before kissing her daughter on her nose, making her giggle. 

And Alfor relaxed into the nest of stolen bedding, exhausted and comfortable and absently wondering how he’d been lucky enough to end up with such a perfect little family.


	15. Cracks and Repair

As a child, Coran had always been very aware of the lines between his family and the nobility. He and his cousins had made a game of the fact that they were never to be seen by the royal family, nor their cohorts, turning the castle into an ever-ongoing round of hide and seek in which they had to be the best hiders ever. 

But as an adult, the lines had become more blurred. The new royals had spoken to him. Laughed with him. Valued him.

_Loved him._

It was dizzying. _Thrilling._ Of all the people on the planet, he’d had to have fallen for the most forbidden, and in a twist of fate a novelist couldn’t have devised, they had returned his affections. The line between servant and royal erased.

Until it had been drawn again, harder than before. And now he _was_ the line.

“If you continue your… _dalliances,_ we can have more servants dismissed,” the Governor of Rukulla Waypoint said after cornering him in a hall once the annual budgeting was over.

“If they give you trouble, I’ll put ipikka juice in their tea,” Turimi hissed under her breath when a knot of governors sneered down their noses at him at a party.

And Coran felt sick, wondering if he was really worth any of this.

A hand pressed against his back, large fingers digging into the knots of stress between his shoulderblades, and he hissed, first in surprise, then in gratitude as they began to loosen up. “Alfor.”

“You’re a mess, old man,” his partner said gently, dropping a kiss against his temple. “Let’s go join Illyere and Allura in the Hundred Fountain Hall.”

Coran hesitated. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea I be seen with you all right now.”

“I am,” Alfor replied. “And so are they,” he added.

Another minute of hesitation, then Coran inhaled deeply. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Allura came running to greet them at the door and flung herself at Coran, wrapping her arms around his waist to squeeze tightly as she buried her face into his stomach, and that made him feel somewhat better. “Hey, dolly. Haven’t gotten to see you in awhile,” he said, petting her hair as Illyere approached.

“We both missed you,” his partner murmured, leaning over her daughter to kiss him on the cheek. “It’s been a very long moon.”

“Yes… yes, it has,” he agreed tiredly, letting her and Allura take him by the hands and pull him into the room as Alfor followed behind him.

\---

“How is it that I ended up the center of this little pile?”

“Mama’s comfy,” Allura replied, snuggling deeper into her lap.

“She has a point. Your hair makes a remarkable pillow,” Coran murmured. Hulimere, but the circles under his eyes were dark. It was clear that her nagging to take breaks during her husband’s last mission with the team had borne no fruit at all. 

She was going to have to be sneakier. 

“Please never cut it,” Alfor agreed from her other side, and he looked little better, though her healing efforts had handled the worst of the bruises from getting battered about Yellow’s piloting harness once negotiation efforts had gone terribly sour.

She made a soft snort of mixed amusement and affection and leaned back into the bedding to better accommodate her nest of exhausted chai’pa. “One would think you all only loved a living pillow,” she teased, running her claws through her husband’s hair and beginning to loosen the braids in Allura’s.

“Noooo,” Allura protested sleepily. “You play good, too.”

Coran visibly bit his tongue and looked away, trying to muffle his laughter. Illyere and Alfor didn’t even try, and his mirth was a low rumble against her shoulder as she rested her head back against the headboard and cackled. “Glad you think so, sweetbug.”

“S’mportant,” Allura insisted.

“It is,” she agreed, leaning down to kiss her daughter on the forehead as Alfor began petting the little princess’ hair.

“Keeps you out of trouble and keeps us all sane,” Coran kidded.

“Hmph.”

“Poor baby,” Alfor murmured when Allura had crashed into soft snores. “Wore herself to nothing today.”

“She’s not the only one,” Illyere chided softly, giving Coran’s hair a gentle tug.

He tsked in response. “Work’s got to be done, Illy.”

“Learn to delegate, then.”

“Ohoho, that’s rich, coming from _either_ of you.”

“Could we kindly save this for tomorrow?” Alfor asked, fighting back a wide yawn. “Ancients know we’ve danced the dance a hundred times. We know the steps well enough we won’t forget it by morning.”

“True enough,” Illyere admitted. “Rest, ai’chattae, I will let you know if anything comes up.”

“No, you won’t,” Coran muttered with a grin as he tilted his head into her wandering claws. There was something wrong with his smile.

“I  will take any situation into my discretion,” she replied with a mock-officious air, then kissed them each in turn. “But if it’s important enough, then I will.”

“Fair enough.”

She watched them all sleep, the exhausted and the battered and the troubled, and then she tilted her head back to stare up at the ceiling in thought.

\---

“You are hiding something, Mama.”

“Am I?”

“Papa and Aipa call that the sneaky face.”

Illyere chuckled and leaned her chin on her hand. “Am I so obvious that I have a _face,_ now?” she asked her daughter, and Allura just grinned wider. “I do have a surprise for you all, though.”

Allura perked up. “Is it a present? My turning is in two moons, you know.”

“So you’ve reminded us all every week for the past three,” Illyere teased. “I suppose it’s a present of sorts, but not one I can hand you. We’re going to see something. Something very few people get to see.”

“ _Schana._ Can we go now?” Allura asked, eyes shining.

“Not yet, sweetbug. Two more days.”

\---

“Alright, my love, you’ve been keeping us in suspense for a week. What’s all this about?”

“Not just yet, darling. Just a little more time. Have to wait until both the moons are right.”

They’d all left the castle just after sundown, heading out to the ruins of the Old Kingdom’s palace. He and Coran had both been there many times on official duty, but here in the light of two full moons, it looked very different. Rather than the usual choking, foreboding weight of austere history pressing down on them, it seemed to have an eerie, yet beautiful quality.

Illyere trotted ahead of them, hand in hand with Allura, until they came to a heavy pair of stone doors. “Here we are. Should be just a few tics longer.”

Even as she said it, moonlight beamed through the roof where a skylight had undoubtedly been before the glass had broken ages ago and struck the doors, lighting up some unknown mechanism.

Save the Queen, all gathered made soft murmurs of awe as the elaborate patterning on the doors lit up in soft gold and the great stone began to swing open of its own accord.

“Where are we?” Coran asked. “I don’t remember seeing this place on the maps in the castle.”

“This is the old priestess’ ritual hall,” Illyere said. “Where they would carry out the war prayers for the old kings and queens. I found it on a map in the archives when I was on a stress binge. But _this_ is what I wanted you to see.”

Shimmering moonlight filled every crevice of the room through a hole in the center of the ceiling, making it seem to glow in a ripple of blue. Lunar lilies similar to those in the Rotunda of Flowers in their own castle had grown into the cracks in the walls, and they lit up in response to the moonlight, adding their own glimmer to the etchings in the walls.

“So _pretty,”_ Allura breathed. “Can I look around?”

“Don’t touch anything,” Alfor warned gently. “Just in case there are old spells bound here. But yes.”

Their little princess made a soft squeal of glee and let go of her mother’s hand, bounding off towards the center of the room to climb up on the ritual table, and Coran moved into her place, taking hold of the bereft hand. 

“You found a stunner, Illy.”

“Indeed,” Alfor agreed softly. “I think we’ll keep this one to ourselves.”

Their smiles were stronger, sweeter, more genuine than they'd been in months, and that was more gratifying than anything she'd found in the ritual chambers. “Glad you like it.”


	16. Adoption

They were both staring.

Coran supposed they could be forgiven for staring.

“Sweet stardust, you two finally merged somehow.”

The pint-sized black and gold Yulnadae staring back at them merely took another sip from her -smoking frighteningly- drink, but from somewhere within the lab, there was a loud bark of laughter. “ _No,_ but that reaction would have been worth it. Smooshy, make sure to get me the camera feeds later.”

“Affirmative.”

“Elakka, let them in,” Joitree continued as she came out from the depths of the lab, wiping her claws on a towel, and the smaller Yulnadae moved aside out of the doorway.

“Who’s your little shadow?” Alfor asked, regarding the newcomer curiously as she silently shuffled behind Joitree to peer at them from over the rim of her glass.

“Finally couldn’t avoid the Home Station’s mentorship program anymore. Misse Elakka here has just finished her classes and has been sent to stay with me for advanced tutelage.”

Alfor raised an eyebrow. “Even with your time mostly being taken up by Paladin missions?”

“Yeah, well, try telling the Council that,” Joitree muttered, then looked back when Elakka tugged on her coveralls. “Sure, go ahead back to your project. Tell Smooshy to help you get things.” Elakka nodded firmly, the decorations of her braid wraps swinging with the motions, then shuffled off into the lab, Smooshy trailing behind her.

“Not very chatty, is she?”

“Eh, she’s easy enough to understand after awhile.”

“So, mentorship,” Coran said, handing over the datapad that had been their reason for coming down in the first place. “You almost make it sound like punishment detail.”

Joitree snorted as she began scrolling through the schematics with the tip of a claw, scrutinizing measurements. “Well, in a way, it _is._ I mean, in theory, the idea of shaping new scientists is great, right? But that’s not what the Council’s using it for. They want to indoctrinate little minds to how inferior other worlds’ tech is and how much they’ll need us. Remember what I was like when you met me? That’s what I thought,” she added when he and Alfor glanced at each other and tried not to wince.

“So why send _you_ a protege? No offense, but wouldn’t your collaborative efforts with Mirje make you, well, ‘contaminated’, so to speak?” Coran asked as he leaned on the doorway.

“Unless they _want_ you to fail,” Alfor pointed out.

“Got it in one. _But_ their little plan is doomed,” Joitree said with an evil little grin as she finished changing a few numbers and handed the datapad back to Coran.

“How do you figure?”

“Because the squirt’s still here. There’s no loyalty in mentorship. She could have dumped me and fled back to the Home Station as soon as she saw how entrenched in different types of tech I am. That means she’s the type to value study over stuffy. That’s unusual. Valuable.”

“She could still report on you, though, couldn’t she?”

“She could…” The small alien scratched at an ear, looking pensive. “I dunno, though. I got a good feeling about this one, guys. Annoying as it is, I think I might be able to turn this around.”

Coran grinned. “Well, if nothing else, it’ll be good practice for when you and Avisheh decide to test tube one of your own.”

The sharp punch to his side was well worth the way she blushed all the way to the tips of her sticking-straight-up ears. “I- you- _shut your face!”_ she squeaked in outrage, which only made Alfor start snickering.

“Ah, the wedding chimes are calling already!”

“I swear by all _Nine Turns,_ I’m gonna-”

“Joia!” a small voice called out, interrupting before Joitree could lay out their hideous fates, and they all looked to find a tiny head peeking over a set of consoles. “I need a three-span korifiliment panel and Smooshy won’t let me into the high storage racks!”

“Ah- oh, I must not have adjusted his clearance settings for you. Hang on, I’ll be right there,” Joitree said with a wave, starting to head towards her student. As soon as the smaller alien had vanished again, however, she turned and viciously shot them a claw gesture over her shoulder that had them both collapsing against the doorway in laughter.

“She’s going to kill us both,” Alfor managed, wiping his eyes as they left the lab.

“Not yet, it would leave the little ones without stand-parents.”

“ _I heard that!”_ snapped the datapad in his hands, which only set them both off cracking up again.


	17. Bait

He scowled and dismissed the message with perhaps more force than necessary.

Ever perceptive, Illyere looked up from where her head rested against his knees, Allura diligently working on a mess of flowery braids in her hair while she read missives from the economics meetings. “Something the matter?”

“Just another of these blasted soppy love declarations. They’re getting embarrassing.”

Illyere chuckled. “Well, with you tagging along on the Voltron missions, your charm was bound to spread eventually,” she teased, and he coughed, pretending his face didn’t immediately go flaming pink.

But after a moment, the humor faded and he stared at the datapad uncomfortably.

“Ai’chatta?” she asked softly, reaching up to gently brush her claws along his jawline.

“It would be more amusing if I could be sure they were _genuine_ , and not some cracked plant by the nobles trying to draw me away from the two of you.”

“They would do that?” a wide-eyed Allura asked, a fistful of her mother’s hair in one hand and a lunar lily in another, and Coran flinched. He hadn’t meant to say so in front of her. Even though Allura was more than old enough to pick up on the tensions in the castle, and often did, bringing them up in front of her….

He wished she could be happily oblivious a little longer.

“Remember what Papa and I told you about how some people aren’t nice and they might hurt Aipa Coran?” Illyere said gently.

“Uh-huh. That’s why I’m not sus-posed to call him Aipa around them.”

“Well, this is one of the ways they might hurt him. So he has to be careful.”

“Ooooohhhh.” Dropping the lily, Allura reached out to squeeze his hand tightly. “Then be  _real_ careful!”

Coran smiled and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead like he always did. “Of course I will, sweetbug. No one’s taking me away from your mama and papa, no matter how pretty their words are.”


	18. Acquainting

“Okay, I’ll bite.  _Why_ are you having my nanites serve drinks?”

Elakka looked up from her lab station and blinked at him several times through her focus goggles, the magnification lenses making solid-black eyes look even more void-like than usual. “They aren’t serving drinks. They are acting as containment fields for corrosive reagents I developed over the last nine cycles,” she said in her usual deadpan voice.

“Then let me rephrase the question.  _Why_ are you using my nanites for containment fields?”

“Until I complete this polymer, they are the only malleable substance capable of containing the reagents.”

“That’s not- wait, really?” Coran asked, confused annoyance overtaken by a twinge of scientific excitement. “What else did you try?”

Elakka made a vague wave over her shoulder at a shelf behind her and he went to go lean down, finding a series of hideous-smelling smoking lumps, all labeled with what they  _used_ to be. 

“I’m sending the whole mess of them along with my agents as an example of their potency.”

“I can see why. Sweet stardust.” And his nanites had stood up to  _that?_ It made a giddy little flutter rise in his chest. “Mind if I take a closer look?”

“Sure. Uh… the heavy grade gloves for your hand shape should be on shelf six-hexa-twi, containment delta.”

“Thanks.” He fetched himself a pair and sat down on a stool, tentatively reaching out to take hold of one of the miniature floating bottles. Sure enough, it was fully malleable, the matter inside not affecting the communication between the nanites one bit. 

No leaks.

No breakage.

_Remarkable._

“You look like a mitchka at their first exhibition.”

“I- well-” The grin didn’t fade. “I didn’t actually  _plan_ for this. Could you explain your testing process, so I might be able to improve them even further?”

It was a lot to ask, he knew. To have a  _finished_ product explained to you, well, that was just the nature of Yulnadae and their need to show off. But to ask about the labwork, the mistakes, the accidents that might have been involved… He felt comfortable enough doing it with Joitree, but he was pressing into new territory here.

Elakka’s left ear flicked. then she made a small murmuring noise and reached into a drawer, pulled out a memory crystal, and shoved it into a datapad receptacle. “Here,” she muttered as the lab recordings and holographic diagrams constructed themselves, then hunched back over her work, almost like a kid trying to hide a drawing from their parent.

His mouth quirked. Nope, not like Joitree at all, he thought with amusement as he started studying. But she  _had_ given him more than enough to work with. The strengthening on the armor alone he could make with these calculations! He could make their communication network operate in almost catastrophic conditions! Why, if they could turn themselves into bottles, maybe they could be-

The grin came back, even wider than before, then he reached over and ruffled the short alien’s hair as he got up. “Send me a comm when you’re done with the project, and then I’ve got another one to start.”

She made a face at getting her braids rumpled, but tilted her head in interest at his expression. “Noted,” she replied.

And his mind was still racing as he left.


	19. Ties That Bind

Joitree scowled as she looked around the scattered recovery and demolition efforts, then lightened a little when she found a potential. “Hey, Illy, you too busy?”

Illyere looked up from the buckets of water surrounding her and dusted off the gloves of her space suit. “Not at the moment. Do you need help with something?”

“Bite-Size vanished during the fight, and Mirje’s off being heavy lifting. Mind being my search buddy?”

Concern crossed the woman’s face, and she shook her head. “Let me get another light, and we’ll go hunting.”

—

The fact that Fellrisian Isolationists had been building an attack base so close to Altea would have gone unnoticed had it not been for the fact that Urmekti’s pirate fleet had been willing to share information with Coran’s spy network. Their cloaking technology had been  _that_ advanced.

Which had only meant two options. Olkari, or Yulnadae. And as they had raided and destroyed the base, the answer had become clear.

“Karking Interros,” Joitree muttered as she and Illyere made their way through what was left of the base.

“What  _is_ Interro?” Illyere asked. “No offense, but I thought your kind wasn’t especially keen on working together.”

“None taken, because we’re not. Interro is…hard to quantify. It’s sort of like… a cult without a religion. Or I guess it  _is_ a religion, but the religion is science at all costs? Ugh, I hate explaining it.”

“So it’s where the ones with no ethics go?”

“Yeah, something like that. And they- wait, there she is!” Joitree cut off, scrambling over some rubble. 

Near where the escape pods had launched sat Elakka, staring off at the open doors. Her braids were falling out into an absolute mess and she was filthy from collapse dust, turning her almost white. She didn’t so much as tilt her head or lift her ears in response to their calls, but whatever she held in her claws, she clutched tighter.

“Hey!” Joitree crouched beside her protege, shaking her by the shoulder. “Didn’t you hear us-” She cut off when she saw the black tear-streaks down the smaller alien’s face. “Kid?”

Elakka hiccuped, the piece of metal cutting into her hand as she squeezed it even tighter. Joitree’s frown deepened, and she carefully pried it loose.

“What’s going on?” Illyere asked, kneeling behind Elakka and gently beginning to undo the mess of her braids.

Joitree bit her lip and her ears bristled as she stared at the  _nametag_ she held, a surge of anger swelling up in her chest. 

_-Inji-_

“Elakka…”

“I just… I just wanted to know how she really felt,” Elakka finally mumbled, her voice as faraway as her gaze. “If Sis had been telling the truth all this time. I…” Another hiccup. “I’m such a stupid keptak…”

“You are  _not_ ,” Joitree snapped, and though she’d never been much for hugging, she reached an arm around the smaller alien. “Everyone wants to think their sires have done something great and worthy and anything else is just bad rumors. Just because you went looking for the truth doesn’t make you an idiot.”

“I was just a failed experiment…”

Illyere bristled and continued running her claws through long hair soothingly. “If your sire truly thinks that, then she is the _real_ fool," she said, her voice the carefully modulated tone of a Queen dealing with a diplomat that sorely needed punching. Or worse.

Joitree grinned up at her gratefully, then gave Elakka a squeeze. “Let’s get out of this dump,”  she said. “We’ll steal everything worth stealing, then rig it to blow if the old puchak comes back.”

Elakka sniffed. “Can I record the self-destruct message?”

“With as many insults as you want.”


	20. Seethe

He could hear the seething thrum of sour notes long before the lab door opened to his palm print. Expression placid, but tail tip twitching, Dracha poked his head in and found that the orange orbs had been dimmed, leaving only the pink optical cubes floating about near the ceiling, darkening the overall lab.

Elakka was curled in a fitfully sleeping ball, her undone hair spilling over the side of the worktable she huddled on in a tangled curtain.

Worry growing, he entered the lab-

-and bumped into Smooshy, who was stumping out from behind some containment racks with a bundle of blankets. 

“Ah. Hmm, great mechanical friend, perhaps you can solve my confusion. What is the source of this… malaise?”

**[[Translating query. Answer: Subject Elakka and Creator Joitree have shown altered behavioral patterns since returning from mission to Fellrisian base.]]**

Oh. Oh, dear. Well, that certainly explained Elakka’s mood. But… “Hmm...You say Joitree has been acting oddly as well?”

**[[Query not understood. Define term ‘’Oddly”.]]**

“Hmm. Where is she?”

**[[Creator Joitree has been secluded in Sub-Laboratory Shutai-Seven-Theta for Seven-]]**

“Thank you,” Dracha said a little more hurriedly than he meant to and slipped past the large droid, heading for the door in question. Honestly, he couldn’t remember the last time Joitree or Mirje had ever  _used_ that sub-lab... or if they  _ever_ had, since the other one was larger and more convenient for the both of them to work in. If she was holed up in  _there,_ she must have  _really_ wanted to be left alone…

And she was angry enough to do something  _very_ rash.

The door’s viewport had been covered from the inside, which did nothing to allay his concern, and he cautiously tapped the command with the very tip of a claw.

Oh.

Yes, that would have been a very nasty shock if he had attempted a full palm scan.

“Joitree.”

“Get lost,” came the muffled snarl from behind the door.

“Hmm, no, I do not think I will do that. When is the last time you have slept?”

“None of your karking business.”

“Hmm, I will guess three days at least from that. Hmm. Elakka is sleeping on the worktables. Hmm, she is probably very worried about you. Hmm, she is quite a mess.”

A hesitation. A flutter of concern in the notes he heard. A bloodshot, black-ringed eye peeking from under the cloth covering the viewport. “So make her go to bed. I’m not her mother.”

Dracha folded his hands behind him and rocked back and forth, his tail balancing him. “Hmm, but she takes after you so much…hmm, especially in  _stubbornness.”_

A scowl, a glare, and the door cracked open. “For someone who’s supposed to be the chill one, you can be a real jerk, you know?”

She wasn’t a chorus, she was  _screaming._ “May I come in?”

Her scowl darkened even more, then she shoved the door wide.

He tried not to wince at the mess inside. Dozens,  _dozens_ of schematics, some more finished than others, parts upon parts, projects completed, projects torn to shreds, projects kludged into other projects- “What else did you find, to burn your heart this badly?” he asked, soft and perhaps a little frightened. Surely, this was not  _all_ just from one confrontation-

Joitree snorted and raked ragged hair out of baggy eyes. “Do you have any idea how many nightmares the kid has because of that old purchak? And then there’s  _this-!”_ She dragged up something on a datapad and thrust it into his claws. “Her file with the Ethics Violations Consul! These are just the ones they’ve  _caught_ her for!”

And it was… a  _very_ long list indeed, Dracha had to admit as he scrolled.

A very,  _very_ long list.

He took a deep breath, closing all four eyes, then laid it down and opened them, reaching out to put a hand on his friend’s back. “Is it doing either of you any good to dwell on her like this, however?”

“How can you-”

“Hmm, look around, my friend. Would anything here actually stop her? Are you well enough to stop her? Is Elakka?”

Joitree bristled at him, ears on end and fangs bared, then actually looked at the mess of work she’d created in her frenzy, the synapses in her head finally clicking on all power instead of in the half-fire of adrenaline only. “It’s all shit,” she admitted, drooping. She scrubbed her face with her claws, ears sagging. “I got nothing.”

Dracha wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Hmm, come,” he said quietly. “Hmm, both of you need proper sleep. Then perhaps we can all come up with something together?”

She leaned against him with a tired sigh. “ _Okay_ … okay. Yeah. Let’s do that.”


	21. Support

“The medics have done their jobs capably, Illy,” Alfor said, batting his wife’s hands away from the bandages that bound up his shoulder and right arm. “You need to rest.”

“Vat’ _cha_ ,” Illyere replied frostily, and despite how pale she was and how dark the circles under her eyes were, her gaze burned with determination. “I can see the bruises they missed. Get back here and hold still.”

Alfor looked to him for help, and Coran pushed away from the wall to catch his queen by the shoulders when she made another grab for their partner. “Alfor’s right, ai’kere. You shouldn’t be exerting yourself in your condition.”

“I am  _fine_ -” Illyere cut off with a pained noise and put a hand on her head as she slumped in his grip and he quickly tightened his hold to keep her from falling into the pillows. “I will  _be_ fine,” she amended. “It’s just a little virus, nothing more.”

Alfor cupped her chin in his hands as Coran continued to hold her up. “Illy,  _please._ If you don’t trust Chulla and his crew, Coran can start looking after the injury, but you’re in  _no_ state to be doing any healing.”

“Allura needs you to get well, and to do that, you can’t be burning yourself out,” Coran added.

And perhaps that was a low blow, but it worked. Illyere finally blew out a breath of frustration and the tension straining her body eased, her pull against his grip relaxing. 

“Fine, you worrying old nurses,” she muttered, leaning against him to tuck her head against his neck. “If it’ll get you off my case.”

Coran chuckled softly and brushed sweat-dampened hair out of her face as Alfor sat up and began rearranging the pillows behind her with his good hand. “I’ll make sure you have a regular supply of archival scrolls to keep you occupied. I'll even personally deliver them.”

“You’d better.”


	22. Language

“Bunch of rotten keptaks.”

Coran stopped in mid-step and stared down at the bristling princess. “ _Allura._ Where did you hear that word?”

Allura didn’t look up, her gaze still on the gossiping nobles he’d been trying to usher her away from. “The Paladin lab. Why?”

He resisted the urge to rub his eyes.

Of course.

It was a Yulnadae curse, of  _course_ she would have only heard it from hanging around- Clearly he was going to have to have a talk with some sharp-tongued scientists about watching their mouths around the princess. 

“Allura, look at me.” The princess looked up at her second father, scowl still firmly in place. “That’s not a word you need to be using.”

“Why not?” Allura asked, quiet and fierce. “It means _idiots_ , doesn’t it? And that’s what they _are_ for thinking Papa should replace Mama now that she’s sick.”

“It does, and a lot of other things. And you’re right,” he said, crouching down to her eye level. “They’re very foolish, and very cruel. Your Papa would _never_ abandon your Mama. But still, that word is _not_ for princesses to say.”

Allura’s nose scrunched, her scowl deepening even further in thought. “…Can I still  _think_ it, as long as I don’t  _say_ it?”

Coran gave a rueful little chuckle. “I suppose we can compromise on that. Glories know _I’ve_ thought it on more than one occasion,” he admitted, gently ruffling her hair. “Now, then,” he said as he straightened up and checked the time on his datapad. “Elakka should be finishing up giving your Mama her medications right about now. What do you say we go drop in for a visit?”

His little princess immediately perked up, scowl vanishing and a bright grin emerging in its wake. “Yeah! Can I get some lunar lilies first to bring her?”

“I bet she’d like nothing better.”


	23. Revenge Served Cold

Elakka was hiding behind her mentor, ears practically standing on end in alarm as she ducked a flying Thraichuk roast that zinged over a cackling Joitree’s shoulder so close to the older Yulnadae’s head it nearly clipped her ear. Wincing in disgust as it splattered against the wall, the apprentice accepted the particle shield Joitree offered and crouched down behind it.

Mirje, on the other hand, just leaned back against an undamaged portion of the wall and and started chuckling as an entire table’s worth of dishes flew towards the ceiling. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer pratchke,” she said, teeth bared in a too-sharp grin. 

“Pity about the food,” Alfor said dryly as he rested his chin in his hand, then leaned to the side to avoid some airborne rolls. 

“Only because you’re not creative enough.” The Green Paladin snatched one out of the air and began to munch on it. “Ooh, and there he goes, headed for the dessert table.”

Zarkon leaned over the railing with Alfor. “Three, two, one-”

“Smash!” Mirje and Joitree both cheered as the Uliquorrian Fourth Prince, blinded by rage and Jurukkai Pepper Sauce, barreled into the buffet of sweets and sauces.

Still hiding behind her shield, Elakka gagged as a Lunarimi Cream Cake landed upside down next to her. 

“Aw, come on, squirt, enjoy the show,” Joitree said, looking back over her shoulder.

“Thanks, but no thanks. This is my best dress.”

“Your loss!”

“You’re being even quieter than usual,” Mirje said as she rested an elbow on Dracha’s head. “Too much chaos for our resident eye of the storm?”

“Hmm, I am quite fine, actually,” the Blue Paladin drawled, the tip of his tail swishing as he lifted a hand to examine the claws of his gauntlet.

Claws that looked suspiciously orange-yellow and sparkly.

Mirje’s eyes widened and her grin grew even bigger. “You little kapka,” she said, awed tone catching the others’ attention.

Joitree whistled. “ _Damn.”_

“Oh, well  _done,”_ Zarkon added.

“Hmm, I have no concept of what any of you are implying.”

“Why, nothing,” Alfor said, though the smirk gave him away. “Nothing at all. Let’s get back to watching the night’s entertainment, shall we?”

“Hmm, a most optimal suggestion.”


	24. Come Crashing Down

The air in the mourning chamber was so cold.

So still.

So heavy.

Coran had never given serious thought to the idea that he might be there one day. Even after he had gone from being one to one of four, he had never _let_ himself think about it, no matter how fully aware he was of the dangers their little family faced.

Beside him, a miserable sniff heralded Allura awakening, huddled between him and her still-sleeping Papa, and he sat up a little straighter, gently brushing rumpled hair out of red-rimmed eyes. “Hey, sweetbug. Can I get you anything?”

She shook her head, silently looking up at the dais where the body lay in the freezing cryo, waiting for the funeral, then scrubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms as he squeezed her gently.

This shouldn’t have happened.

_Glories_ , this shouldn’t have happened.

Illyere had been _recovering,_ finally showing life and light again after the mystery malady that had left her a shadow of herself for nearly a full year. She’d even insisted she was well enough to handle the capitol’s Rimak Festival preparations while they were on a mission with the Voltron team.

And yet…

And _yet…_  

It was foolhardy. 

It was selfish. 

If he’d been there, the force of the shot would have pierced his shield and he…

But at least then…

He _hated_ himself for not staying behind.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then instantly regretted it, his mind filled with the vision of her falling, pierced at the heart, the glow of her eyes and her markings darkened before she’d even hit the ground.

A sudden crash from beyond the doors made him snap to alert and woke Alfor, and both of them started to get up, only for small hands to clutch at their clothing. 

Faced with the wide-eyed stare of terror, so soon after losing one member of their own, Alfor halted and crouched to wrap his arms tightly around their daughter. “We’re here, dolly,” he soothed as Allura buried her face against his chest with a sob, the tears that had worn her into exhaustion reviving fresh.

“Should I-?”

“No,” Alfor murmured softly, stroking Allura’s hair. “The others won’t let anything happen, I’m sure.”

As if to confirm his belief and comfort the upset princess, his Paladin comm band gently flashed three blue pulses a moment later, a signal from Mirje that the coast was clear.

Coran sighed softly and gently rubbed Allura’s back, then slowly pushed himself to his feet and approached the dais.

It… _angered_ him, somehow, that the assassin’s blaster bolt had singed her hair so badly. The ritual priestesses had been forced to cut so much of it that they’d barely been able to plait the traditional Mabarka burial braids.

She looked so… 

It might have well just been a statue for all she resembled the bright, laughing spark that had been their Illy. 

“She doesn’t look right.”

He tilted his head to Allura, who’d come up beside him holding her Papa’s hand, and offered his as well, which she latched onto tightly. “I agree. What do you think we should do?”

Allura screwed up her face in thought, biting her lip. “She needs lunar lilies. They were her favorite.”

“Good idea, dolly. We’ll ask the priestesses to put some in her hair before they release her to the stars, okay?”

“Okay.”

And for the rest of the night, they had little else to say, just quietly clinging to each other as they wished they had no reason to be there at all.


	25. Symphony

The Queen seemed…  _different_ when they all disembarked from their Lions. The air around her seemed to hum more loudly, discordant notes chiming softly in her aura.

It… did not...  _bother_ him, but interested him. 

It was... _curious._  

And so he listened, as he always did.

And the answer came to him, as the two of them were waiting while the others were finishing their reports.

“There are three harmonies singing in you.”

Illyere jumped, then looked around furtively before suddenly leaning forward to clamp a hand over his mouth. Dracha’s tail wiggled in surprise, then she put her finger to her lips in a ‘shush’ motion, and he understood.  “What did you hear?” she asked softly enough that their voices wouldn’t carry through the door as she took her hand away from his muzzle.

“Hmm, your song and two new ones. Am I incorrect?”

“Hah. No,” Ilyere murmured with an almost giddy little giggle. “I just… to think it would be so _obvious_ already.”

Dracha stared at her for several tics, uncomprehending, then sat up straighter. “…Hatchlings,” he realized. 

How odd. 

He knew, of course, that many species carried their young within them. But never before had he been privy to hear the heartsongs of the young while they were still within their mother.

_Fascinating._

“Sshshh, yes. But don’t tell anyone yet. I need to make sure I’ll be able to carry them before I surprise the others.”

“Are you expecting problems? Hmm, I could contact a clutch-nurse.”

“No one in my family’s carried twins before, so we don’t know yet what kind of complications could be involved. But Prichel’s aided my family capably for two generations now, so I’m hoping for the best.”

“Hmm, then I will hope also,” Dracha said, offering a hand, and she grinned and squeezed it.

“Remember, though. Hush-hush.”

“Hmm, very quiet. Very quiet, I will be,” he agreed with a faint smile, peacefully reveling in her joy and the responding chimes of the little ones.

—

Allura sobbed quietly as she clung to Coran, her face buried in her second father’s stomach and her shoulders shaking. He held her tightly, head bowed and expression shadowed.

Dracha had never seen his friend look so pale… so gaunt. So  _sick._

And Alfor…  _Alfor..._

Grief seemed to weigh on the King of Altea like a pack of depth-stones, leaving him bowed and broken as he stood ahead of them all with the ritual priestesses, his face hidden by the traditional shroud of the mourning royal left behind.

Dracha's tail twitched uncomfortably when the antigravity beam flashed at the priestesses' summoning, and he only stared harder at the floor, unable to lift his head to look as the Quee- Illyere's body was raised from the cryo.

He couldn't  _stand_ the silence that filled the air around her.

A small clawed hand subtly squeezed his, but the slight nod Elakka gave him only made him feel worse.

She didn't know.

None of them knew.

And now he would never be able to tell them.

 


	26. Military Flags

It had started just a few days after the funeral.

The whispers were the same as always. Some thinking they were being so secretive, some not caring that he could hear. 

But all would nervously go silent whenever the princess smiled up at them.

And after the dinner where Miss Nisey practically fled in fear when she’d been caught in an insult, he knew why.

Little Allura’s smile had sprouted fangs.

—

Turimi had been the one to inform him that Allura had requested all her dresses be replaced. When he’d asked why, the only answer the maid could give him was that they were ‘wrong’. 

“She’s grieving,” his Aunt Micelle explained gently when he’d brought the question to her. “She misses her mother’s clothes.”

And that had made sense, though he didn’t know how to fix it.

“I’ll handle it, Rana,” his aunt had promised. 

And though it caused just as many whispers as her mother’s had, Allura  _was_ happier with her new culture-fusion clothing.

And if Allura was happy, that was more than enough.

—

“You’re doing that on purpose,” he said when he saw her new, sharper facial markings.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Allura replied, wide-eyed and innocent. “I’m a growing mixed-blooded girl.”

He snorted and ruffled her hair, and she laughed.

—

When she showed up for her fifteenth turning party, hair meticulously plaited in the triple-patterned style, she gave him a subtle side glance before she curtseyed to her first father, who was desperately trying not to laugh in front of the crowd.

For his own part, he did nothing but grin into his wine

—

“Too much?” she asked, showing off the streaks of very familiar red and purple she’d transmuted into her hair.

“Considering you declared war at the age of five, I’d just call it battle colors at this point.”

Her grin still had fangs. “Good.”


	27. Dirty Work

“That’s  _it!”_

With nimble speed that clearly surprised their hosts, the Red Paladin was up and halfway across the table before Alfor managed to grab her and tuck her, struggling wildly, under his arm. “Let go! I’m gonna-”

“Joitree, calm yourself!” Alfor begged desperately. “Surely the Consulate didn’t mean-” 

Oh.

Oh, that sneer was not helping. If anything, the expression on the old Itrutanpri’s maw was pissing off his mission partner  _more,_ judging by her increased curses.

“Oh, of course I didn’t mean to insult the legendary  _firepower_ of Yulnadae technology,” the Consulate said, smugness leaking from every word. “I was implying their  _coding_ wasn’t up to par with ours. After all, if you’d traded with us decades ago when we’d first made the offer, perhaps… your security would have been competent enough that your family would still be whole.”

Alfor went rigid.

Joitree’s fighting stilled.

Slowly, they looked at each other.

“Did… did he just-”

Teeth bared, his partner pointed  _down._

Alfor took a deep, shaky breath.

Then gently, delicately, he set Joitree on the table.

And let her go.

“ _C'mere!_ _I’m gonna set your tail on fire and shove it so far up your ass you’ll be spitting embers!”_

As screams of panic erupted and the sounds of small drone blaster fire followed, Alfor turned and exited to the hall, closing the conference door with a quiet click behind him.

And he walked to the hanger without turning back.


	28. Test Subject

“That can’t be right…”

Alfor looked up from the reports he was reading to find Coran scowling at a series of codes outlined in red from the castle feeds. “What’s the problem?”

“Some sort of temperature flux down in the Paladins’ Guest Quarters. Three of them in the past eight cycles. But no one’s there to be controlling the systems except Smoosh- damn, and there goes a power grid alert. What is he  _doing_ down there?”

Frowning slightly, Alfor got up from his seat and came over to examine the splotches of red that were beginning to light up the area where Mirje and Joitree had kept their lab. “We should probably check on him. I would have thought Joitree had failsafes in the event of… what  _happened,_ but if he’s glitching without his creator to give him orders…”

“Right… right,” Coran muttered, neither of them wanting to  _say_ what they would have to do in the event that the droid had gone rogue after losing his mistress. “I’ll meet you at the lifts.”

—

More alerts were lighting up the datapad Coran carried almost by the tic, and Alfor glanced at the other man as the lift descended into the depths of the castle. 

“It’s almost like the labs’ systems are  _panicking,_ isn’t it?”

“Power flux, temperature flux, proximity warnings- it’s all environmental, not damage alerts,” Coran agreed, trying to keep up with the flood of information. “At least we can assume he’s not destroying the labs, which is somewhat of a comfort, but then what-”

**_“HAZARDOUS TESTING IN PROGRESS. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM ENTERING LABORATORY AREA.”_ **

Both jumped in alarm at the deep electronic voice that boomed out of the datapad, then stared at each other.

“That’s… that’s not an auto alert,” Coran said uneasily. “Someone had to  _send_ that.”

The lift doors opened, and it was like stepping out onto the tundra of Kerumina Four. “ _Sch’tai!”_ Alfor hissed, breath forming a cloud in front of him. Turning towards the closest quarters -and trying his damnedest not to think about the fact that they had once been Zarkon’s- he had to hammer on the door command to get it to respond, then retrieved a couple of blankets for himself and Coran. “What in the nine-”

A sharp, desperate tweedling noise answered them, and they rounded the corner to find Smooshy anxiously pacing outside of the lab. 

 **[[Assistance Required. Assistance Required. Assistance Require-]]**  he beeped in a constant loop of upset noises, until his camera eye finally landed on them.

“Smooshy, what’s happening?” Coran asked, holding up the datapad as they approached. “Why have you-”

**[[This unit is not in control of Laboratory Xexa. Laboratory Xexa has been commandeered by Access Control 993421 Subject Elakka.]]**

That stopped them both in their tracks. “ _What?_  When did she return?”

**[[Query not understood. Subject Elakka has been stationed in Laboratory Xexa for thirty-seven days, nineteen cycles, forty-two cliks, and three tics.]]**

Alfor felt his stomach drop. 

Thirty-seven days.

That would have been when-

“Kark this,” he heard Coran growl, then the other man ripped the outer casing off the door controls to enter the emergency override.

What they found inside was chaos. Containment cases had been upturned, half-finished droids cannibalized, datapads strewn everywhere with schematics upon schematics jittering above them.

And in the corner of the room that had once held one of Smooshy’s extra recharge chambers-

“ _Elakka!”_

The pod was iced over on the inside, the clear source of all the cold in the halls. The Yulnadae dangled inside from some sort of harness, looking like a sack doll in the grip of a child. Her usually carefully maintained braids were a ragged mess and her clothes bore burn scars from torches and proton knives.

“Smooshy, where are the controls on this thing?”

**[[Query not understood. Subject unknown.]]**

“Damn-!” He was about to resort to the old fashioned measure of just picking up the nearest object and attempting to smash the glass in, when an ominous hissing noise heralded the pod opening on its own and the harness lowered its burden to the floor as the room’s temperature returned to normal levels.

“Report, Attempt 243,” a dull voice mumbled as Elakka stumbled forward, apparently completely unaware of their presence. “System’s air recycling efficiency has improved forty-three per cent. Still not at full central cycle. Still gaps in the ventilation return. Still not  _done-”_

“What are you  _doing_?” Coran asked, catching her by the arm as she walked past him without even raising her head, and the diminutive alien finally blinked at him. “Using yourself to test cryo building? Have you lost your  _mind_?”

“Ha. That’s funny. That’s- that’s funny,” Elakka said eyes bright and hollow, and the lopsided, wavering grin that flitted across her face was something that Alfor was sure was going to haunt him. “‘Cause it was a neurotoxin that- heh, I get it. Good one.”

“Elakka-”

“No.” The Yulnadae tried to yank her arm free, and when Coran didn’t let go, the screech she made as she swung at him with her other fist was almost  _animal. “No, no,_ ** _no!_  **Nobody else! Nobody else is dying in those things! Not you! Not  _her!_ Not when I can  _fix it!_   _I can fix it, let go, let go, let **go!** ”_

But Coran didn’t, and though Alfor knew he should step in one way or another, all he could do was stand frozen and watch in some sort of fascinated horror as his  _friend_ worked herself into a shrieking, flailing breakdown. 

“ _Let me fix it!”_ she finally wailed before burying her face against Coran’s stomach to cry, the sound squeezing his heart like claws as he watched his partner rock her. For a brief moment, a different, but similar scene flashed in his mind, their daughter the sobbing form wrapped in such a tight embrace as her mother’s body waited for release, and that was what gave him the strength to move, crouching down to join them.

“Smooshy,” he said quietly, and the droid beeped at attention. “The cryo redesign project is to continue under strict supervision. Elakka is to be kept on a normal schedule of eating and sleep. All tests are to be conducted with at least three witnesses on hand to be ready in the event of an issue. Reports are to be submitted daily.”

**[[Affirmative. Processing Parameters. Subject Elakka's care now priority.]]**

\---

After the adrenaline crash had finally left Elakka bundled in a snoring heap of blankets, the two of them had begun sorting through the pile of...  _mess_ that was the lab. "Quiznak."

"What is it?" Alfor asked, looking up from some prosthetics that had been destroyed.

Coran held up a datapad, his expression dark. "Someone sent her Mirje's fight."

Involuntarily, his fingers clenched until the metal skeleton in his hands groaned in protest. "Delete it," he growled. "No, wait. Find out the source, first. I want to know if it was someone who didn't know better, or if we're looking at more of their attempts at psychological attacks."

"Yessir," Coran muttered, then tapped at his comm. "Go ahead, Turimi."

"Are you busy at the moment?"

"Trying to get some affairs sorted in the Paladins' Lab. What's the problem?"

"You- um... You two might want to patch in to Inter-Channel Kulai-Seventy-One-Brokai-Three. The  _'Sovereign's'_ announced they're going to be making another broadcast within the next cycle, and it's going to be big."

The two of them glanced at each other warily, and he sent an emergency signal to Dracha. "On it. Thanks for the heads up."


	29. Clinging

“Dracha’s sent a message from Morla Prime.”

Alfor automatically flinched and hated himself for it, then took a deep breath and looked up. Coran’s calm expression was a relief, but still, his caution remained. “What did he have to say?”

“Joitree was apparently an even worse housekeeper at home than she was in her lab here.”

He snorted, the tension in his back and shoulders finally releasing, and rested his chin on one hand. “Is that all he sent?” he asked as Coran let himself into the office and the door swished closed behind him.

“No, of course not. He sent quite a lot of pictures, in fact. A map, even. All triple encrypted, naturally.” Coran sat down across from him and handed him the datapad,

Alfor accepted and pulled up the holowindow, “Lenelli Double Cipher. Isn’t that one of the data building block methods favored by your cousins?”

“Which is exactly why Zarkon never learned it,” Coran confirmed. 

Carefully, patiently, he worked the pieces into their gaps. It was somewhat relaxing, a welcome change from tactics and diplomacies and a thousand treaties broken by someone he’d once called brother.

The last lock fell into place and the blue holo crumbled, replaced by bright glowing reds and oranges and pinks.

Coran chuckled softly, folding his arms as he leaned back in his chair. “I do believe Dracha understated a bit,” he said with a fond grin at the scatter of screens and consoles and both finished and unfinished projects that greeted them, backlit by the glow of lava tubes and rivers.

It was a mess, true, but… Alfor opened another file and studied the map. “Might be a nice place to take a look around if we can ever catch a break in all this…” he murmured softly. 

“True… true.”

—

“Coran…”

“It’s alright.”

“I should-”

“You should stay right there and let me take care of that shoulder, that’s what you should do.”

Alfor sighed and let his head fall forward, knowing it was an argument he wasn’t going to win. “You’re just as stubborn as she is,” he mumbled in an exhausted haze.

“ _Hah_.  _She_  would have  _sat_  on you until you let her finish healing the joint,” Coran replied dryly as he closed off the gel cast and grabbed a towel to wipe his hands. Then his expression softened and he gently brushed his partner’s hair back out of his face. “And you’d beg to be rescued and not mean a damn word of it.”

“It’s true,” Alfor admitted, tilting his head into the affectionate touch. Glories, he was so tired… He almost felt dizzy and he didn’t know if it was the healing gel going to work or the weariness in his bones. Leaning forward, he rested his forehead on Coran’s shoulder. "Coran... would she...?"

Minding the gel and the injury, his partner gently draped arms around his shoulders. "Have ripped Zarkon's throat out by now and lectured him for hurting you as he died? Probably."

It wasn't really the question he was asking, but it succeeded in getting him to laugh.

And for the first time in days, he slept.


	30. Bloodlines

“Oh my, oh my, oh my, it has been so long since we have had such distinguished guests!” the tiny Turimonqua maid was chirping, her rainbow lace wings flashing in the light as she fluttered from person to person to pin their access badges to the collars of their clothing. “To think, an entire royal entourage!”

“Your mistress’ hospitality has been very impressive,” Allura said politely as she bowed, prompting the rest of them to follow suit. “Thank you for putting us up on such short notice.”

“Oh, it is no problem at all. Anything, anything at all for a king and his daughter!”

Silence.

“I- I beg your pardon, run that by me again?” Coran asked hesitantly.

The maid produced a tiny scroll made of glimmering light. “You _are_ Coran, first of his name, Second Father to Allura, Fourth of the Allura Title, correct?”

“I- well, yes, but I was unaware that-”

“Then it is settled! Come, come, your rooms are this way!”

—

“A _king?!”_ Lance asked, gaping, as Coran paced back and forth in the common area that joined their rooms. "Since when are you a  _king?!"_

“Believe me, this is just as much a surprise to me as it is to you,” he protested. “I mean… they’d always _said_ they would, but-”

“Said they would _what?”_ Shiro prodded.

“Well, it was always a given that if anything were to happen to their majesties before Allura came of age, I would care for her,” Coran said, and Allura took hold of his hand and squeezed. “But it was always going to have to be behind the scenes as her retainer. The nobility never would have accepted me stepping up to the throne.”

“Why not?” Pidge asked. “You were practically their second in command. Who better?”

Coran scratched the back of his neck, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Mm…”

Allura squeezed tighter. “It's alright, Aipa, I'm right behind you.”

He sighed. “The fact of the matter is, Altea had a very deep split along class lines. Alfor and Illyere worked very hard to do better by the lower classes, but the nobility fought it tooth and nail. It was the scandal of scandals when it came out that the three of us had formed a relationship. Whispers ran from them slumming it to me attempting a coup from the bedroom.”

Hunk made a very unamused growl, pounding fist to palm. “Too bad we couldn’t have been around then to knock a few heads straight.”

Grim agreeing nods filled the room.

Coran laughed weakly, the sound puncturing the worst of the tension. “Thank you. And to be honest, your predecessors were much the same way about it. But… there you have it.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I can’t believe they actually _did_  it, though.”

“Well, you know how Mama loved to thumb her nose at her fellow bluebloods. She and Papa and Archivist Michika probably had a grand time with their official recording to put in the record.”

“Hey, I bet we could find it,” Pidge said with a wicked grin. “What do you think the search code would be?”

“Ten to one they made it a present… Aipa’s birthday.”

Coran groaned. “They _would_.”

“Alright! Birthday hunt for King Coran!”

“Don’t you _dare_ start calling me that, I swear on so many Ancients-”


	31. Thawed

“ _Dude,”_ Lance muttered quietly as the door swished open. Pidge, half a pace behind him, made a noise at a pitch he could barely even hear, then shoved past him to get at all the assorted projects and tech first. “Hey!”

“Oh my god. Oh my _God. Look_ at all this stuff,” Pidge squealed, picking up what looked like some kind of unfinished robot arm. “I wonder why it’s all so far away from the rest of the labs.” 

“Dunno.” He peered around, trying to find some light controls, and was surprised when, instead of the usual blues and whites, the room was illuminated by floating pink cubes and orange orbs. And so was- “Holy _shit,”_ he squeaked, stumbling back from the huge robot looming over him out of the shadows of one of the control consoles.

 _“Cool!”_ Dropping the arm back onto the table, Pidge began a prodding inspection of the droid, obviously trying to find the power controls. “Bet this guy can help us with getting some of these parts and projects moved if we can get him woken u-”

“Do you even know if that’s what it’s for? What if it’s some kind of kill-everything security drone?” Lance asked, backing away from it.

“Oh, come on, do you seriously think they’d be keeping that kind of thing in the Castle?”

“Gladiators.”

“…Point. Still, I want to know what it-”

As he’d been trying to put as much distance as possible between him and the ten-foot hunk of potential death, Lance had been backing deeper into the lab, and he yelped when he bumped into something that made a loud hiss. “What the- whoa. Hey, Pidge, quit messing with the tin can and c’mere, I found a cryo chamber!”

—

Coran looked up from the power feeds he’d been recalibrating. “Alright, your highness, give it another try.”

Allura scrunched her nose in concentration, then gave the piloting controls a gentle nudge to raise engine feedback-

-which should _not_ have produced the loud explosion under their feet that they heard. “What in sheraiz-”

“ _Coran!”_ came Lance’s voice in a panicked screech over the comms, with more crashes and another explosion in the background. “There’s a psycho loose down in this weird lab we found and she’s got a giant robot!”

The two of them looked at each other. “Weird lab?” Allura asked. “Could they have woken…?”

“Nah, they couldn’t mean-”

“ _Out! Out, out, out, you mutants! Smooshy! Cryo-ion pulse!”_

“Oh, quiznak, they _did_ wake her up! Come on!”

—

They found their missing Paladins cowering under a huge rack of containment boxes, while Smooshy was clearly preparing to rip it loose to get at them. And perched on the droid’s shoulder, some variety of rifle in claw, was- “Elakka!”

Long black ears perked up and the short alien turned, a sharp-fanged grin spreading across her face. “Klaka! Allaia!”

Coran coughed. “Ah- those two are with us as well, so if you could please-?”

She scowled, but shouldered the rifle. “ _Fine._ Smooshy, heel.” Pidge and Lance gratefully scrambled out, half stumbling as they bolted across the lab to hide behind him. “Now explain what these keptaks were doing in _my_ lab.”

“How were we supposed to-?!” Lance started to protest, but he quickly shushed the human.

“Ah, maybe we should start you off with a records update,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “You were asleep even longer than we were, after all, so…”

Deep, black eyes narrowed, then Elakka handed the rifle off to Smooshy and hopped into his other hand so he could set her on the floor. “I see. Well, in that case, I’m setting up my spirits lab before we get to talking. Clearly, I’m going to need it.”

“Probably a wise idea.”


	32. The Core

“Hey, Coran, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Coran rolled out from under the console he was working on and sat up, wiping his hands on a rag. “I can afford to take a break, what’s on your mind, Hunk?”

Hunk pulled over another mechanic’s stool and sat down, opening several holowindows from the datapad he’d brought with him. “Well, I’ve been noticing some really weird… well, I’d call them glitches, except they seem to be  _helpful_ to the Castle’s systems, and they keep popping up. Like here. And here.”

Coran leaned over, frowning slightly. “Hm. I see what you mean. Are these the only ones you found?”

“Oh, heck no. There are a whole lot more,” He dug into the life support systems and the navigation controls, pulling up atmospheric tweaks for their comfort that seemingly no one had made and updates on the star maps and civilizations that none of them had authorized. “See this one here? Two hundred and twenty three archive updates today. None of us have even  _been_ in the archives.”

Coran regarded the holowindow, then his eyes went wide for a moment before he smacked his forehead in disbelief. “Sheraiz. I’m a damned fool,” he muttered, heaving himself to his feet. “Come with me.”

—

The lift took them deep in the castle, depositing them into a room full of computer screens and touch consoles and cables running every which way. “Whoa,” Hunk breathed, fingers itching to dig into it all.

Then he saw the glowing tube.

It looked almost identical to the one that King Alfor’s AI had once been housed in, only instead of blue, it was glowing a deep pink. “Is that another core?”

“Indeed,” Coran said. “And I should have expected that she would be active again now that his majesty is no longer with us.”

“She? Who is she?”

“She is his wife, the former Queen Illyere. We constructed her core as an experimental test of the design,” Coran replied, going one of the consoles to begin inputing several codes. “Unlike the King, who did a direct upload from his own mind, we had to construct her from records and recordings.”

“It worked though, right? I mean, she’s been taking care of us well enough.” Hunk edged close to the core, then looked down at the little screen at the base. It was blinking one command request:  _[Take form?]_

“Oh, yes. Maybe a little too well. His majesty was… well, it’s a long story. But she was with us up until we constructed his core, and then the systems overrode each other.”

_”Maybe we can fix that after we’ve repaired him in the quarantine.”_

Oh man, pressing the button sequence had  _definitely_  been worth watching Coran practically vault the console and hide behind it like a startled cat, and Hunk had to bite the inside of his cheek  _hard_ not to laugh. The pink lady with the long hair and wide skirts that had formed out of the core had no such compunctions, and cackled at the Altean retainer’s reaction.

“ _Illy?!”_

_”It’s been a long time, Red. Thank your Paladin, here.”_


	33. Revival

“What _is_ that on your face?”

“Illyere,” he breathed, his heart pounding too fast in his chest, his mind too light in his head. It was one thing to know that her AI was still housed somewhere in the castle, but to actually  _see_ her again, right here in front of him...  He barely even noticed Hunk quickly making himself scarce, he was so caught in just...  _staring._

Her smile brightened a little and he was sure it wasn’t just a trick of the hologram. “Hello, Red. Been awhile, hasn’t it?”

“You always had a knack for understating.” He put aside the wrenches and drivers and stood, reaching out for her hand. It felt different as Alfor’s felt different, but he reveled in it as she squeezed his fingers, reached up and swept her claws through his hair in the old, familiar gesture-

-then yelped when she tugged on his mustache with an impish smirk.

“You still haven’t told me where in the hells  _this_ came from.”

“Ah, well.” Coran awkwardly scratched under his chin. “You know how mourning rituals are. And then Alfor and I just… sort of, well, decided to keep ours.”

Illyere’s expression changed from amused to something sad and fond and exasperated all at once, and she lightly thumped him on the head. “You two. Ever the incorrigible romantics.” 

“You loved us for it.”

“I still do,” she corrected him, leaning in to rest her head on his shoulder. Despite the tingling, staticky feeling, he nuzzled into her hair and loosely wrapped his arms around her waist as he often had when she was whole.

“Are you going to stay?” he asked quietly. 

“After all the effort he went to configuring me while you two slept, it would be rude not to, don't you think? Besides, you two always get in trouble without me,” she teased, then made a surprised noise when that made him hold her tighter. “Coran?”

“We really do,” he said quietly.

Illyere stiffened, then made a soft hum and just held him gently, running her claws reassuringly along his back.

They stayed like that a long while.

\---

He was sure the light of her eyes dimmed as she stared at him, and he struggled not to squirm under her gaze. “I imagine it must be a disappointing change-”

Her hands quickly reached up to cup his face, claws a now-familiar little staticky prickle against his jawline, and her expression was almost wounded, her voice glitching in a little crack. “No. _No,_ ai’chatta. If there’s _any_ reason to be disappointed, it’s because I wasn’t there to stop the monsters from leaving their marks on you.”

He snorted a watery laugh at that and covered one of her hands with his own, squeezing gently. “I’d think a little thing like being _dead_ would be a good excuse for that,” he chided, and it hurt in his chest a bit to be joking about death _with_ the dead, but wasn't the least sane thing he'd ever done, and seeing her wrinkle her nose in that old familiar way just before she punched him in the shoulder with her free hand made him feel so much better.

“Details,” she replied dryly, pulling away to let him retrieve his uniform undershirt. “How new _are_ they?” she asked, soft and worried again once he pulled it back on.

 _Has Alfor seen them_? was the unspoken question.

“None since waking,” he said, then took a deep breath and took hold of her hands. “None since Nothatcha,” he clarified, knowing the ship would have input _that_ data to her memories.

“No surprises, then.”

He jumped slightly at the new -old- voice, having appeared without a door opening or closing, then relaxed when familiar/not familiar arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind. “No surprises,” he agreed, “-except for you two needing to learn not to sneak up on me like that.”

“Keeps you on your toes, old man,” Alfor teased gently, as much for Illyere’s benefit as his, before the quiet pall of concern and quiet threatened to choke the room again.

None of them could help it, he knew. 

So much has changed. 

So much is _gone._  

“Rest, ai’chatta,” Illyere murmured as they guided him to the bed. “We’re here..”

He wished he could believe that would always be the case now, that he wouldn’t always have this fear lurking in the back of his mind.

The fear that came with seeing a broadcast of a blaster shot in a crowd.

The fear that came with a remote wormhole he could never reopen.

But they try for him. Gentle hard light claws carded through his hair and there was a warm, steady presence at his back. If he closed his eyes and willed hard enough, he could almost imagine the smell of quulin spice and the soft thump of a heartbeat.

And he slept.


	34. Repairs

_“Is… this supposed to happen?”_

_“Would you rather I appear as a conglomeration of organs instead?” Alfor -a roughly_ five-year-old  _Alfor- asked from inside his core cell as he watched his wife patiently sewing together bits of code into a coat._

 _Hunk blanched at the mental image. “_ Nope. _This is good. So, you’ll grow up as we get more of you fixed, then?”_

_“That’s the general idea,” Illyere replied, reaching out to accept another “piece” of holographic code from Coran. “All of this is is memories, records, copies of his original data that we’ve been able to retrieve so far from the quarantine.”_

_“Huh.” Pidge said from beside him. “Interesting. So… He’s not going to be a complete mind upload anymore?”_

_“Afraid not,” Coran handed them each a datapad that already had a series of files and number chains running. “Her majesty activated at the exact point that Allura destroyed the corrupted core. She was only able to partially rescue the original upload. So we’ll have to piece him together the way she was.”_

_“That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”_

“Illyere works perfectly,”  _Alfor said, tone a little sharp as he puffed himself up._

_Pidge turned pink. “I, uh, didn’t mean it like that,” she said, scratching the back of her neck with the datapad._

_Illyere clucked her tongue and reached through the core glass to pull her pint-sized husband’s hair teasingly. “We know you didn’t,” she said with a smile. “My little love is still a protective one, even at this age.”_

_Hunk held his datapad to his chest, eyes glistening. “Awww, that’s so_ cute. _So, what do we need to start looking for first? Anything specific?”_

_“Hmm.” Coran tapped a few buttons, then dragged something on a console screen. “Let me s- oh. This here should be a good start. One, two… Five. Five boxes of holodata chips down in the archive inventory, Room Hulla-Nonai-Zeto. Here you go.”_

_“On it!”_


	35. Evolutionary Botany

“-and I thought to myself hey, that kinda looks like a picture from one of Coran’s botany rambles, wouldn’t it look cool on the ship? So I talked to the guy selling them, and he said they were actually traceable to Altea, which was even _cooler,_ so I figured you guys… would… uh…”

It had started off so well.

He was gonna present the flowers, be a total hero, maybe even get a kiss on the cheek from Allura! But now the A.I. Queen was cradling the pot in her lap like it was going to shatter if she let go, her hologram husband patting her on the back supportively and Allura clutching her hand.

“Um-”

He’d seen movies where robots could cry. Never holograms. And yet, right before him, the former queen of Altea made an awkward little hiccup and then _broke down,_ and oh, _shit_ this was not what he had wanted to happen at _all-_

Half panicked, Lance started to step forward to take the flowers away before they could make anything _worse_ -

A hand caught his arm.

“Let them have the moment, lad,” Coran said, pulling him back.

“But- I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine.” The Altean nudged his arm lightly and indicated the others, and Lance hesitantly looked back.

Allura was crying, too, as she hugged her mother tightly. Even the King looked kind of misty as he steadied them both.

But, through the streaming tears, all three were _beaming._

_“Oh…”  
_

_“_ She always did love lunar lilies,” Coran said quietly, and Lance bit his lip and looked away, pretending not to notice the older man wipe a tear of his own.

“So… I didn’t screw up?”

Coran clapped him gently on the back. “Not at all. Well done,” he said, then went to join his family.

Lance hung back, a slow grin spreading across his face.

Yeah… yeah, this was better than getting a kiss.


End file.
